Radio Nowhere
by Chasing Liquor
Summary: - "Is there anybody alive out there?" - On their way back from a routine aid mission, McKay and Keller are reminded that nothing is ever easy. McKeller, McKay whump
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I can stake no claim to any of the characters who appear in this story. If I did, that MGM lion would tear me apart.  
Characters: Rodney McKay, Jennifer Keller  
Rating: K

A/N: Salutations. For those reading 'The Touch of Earth,' that's not getting cast aside, but McKay and Keller have been dogging me! In fact, they've been demanding I write more about them! As such, this idea - inspired by the song from which the story derives its title - just got its hooks into me. You could consider this a sequel to my story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," but absolutely no knowledge of that story is necessary to read this one.

I hope you'll read and enjoy this little tale, and I hope you'll leave me a review to tell me what you think.

* * *

**Radio Nowhere**

* * *

Keller smiled softly at the dark child, holding up the empty syringe as evidence of her unbroken promise. 

"I told you it wouldn't hurt."

The child smiled in kind, bowing his head in a manner too polite for his age. Taking one last look at the small puncture mark on his arm, he turned and sped off through the courtyard to rejoin his friends.

With a soft, satisfied sigh, the doctor turned to find McKay standing over her left shoulder.

"Hey," she greeted warmly. "Are you finished with the scientists?"

"'Scientists' is a generous designation," he replied dismissively, "but yeah, I'm finished. You?"

Keller nodded.

"Yeah, I think that was the last of them, though I'd like to take another walk through town to be sure."

McKay surprised her by kneeling down next to her, gathering up some of her supplies and repositing them in her equipment bags as he spoke.

"The only way you missed anyone is if they're purposefully avoiding you, in which case they're either idiots or masochists and it's not our problem."

Keller rolled her eyes, leaning over to help him collect her tools and antiseptics and vials.

"As poetic as that sentiment is, I'd feel better just taking one more look."

McKay didn't quite know what the point was. The town council had made vaccination mandatory, and Keller had insisted on leaving behind a stockpile for future use. Anyone who _had_ been missed – and mind you, the doctor had been _more_ than thorough – could be vaccinated at any time after the Lanteans departed.

Regardless, though, it would clearly provide Keller with peace of mind, and McKay loathed to deny her that.

"All right," he sighed. "But let's make it quick."

The doctor smiled in appreciation of his quick capitulation, pulling herself up off the ground and stretching her back. When she moved to pick up her equipment bags, she was charmed to see McKay had already gathered all three of them, one in each hand and one slung awkwardly over his shoulder.

"Oh… thanks," she said. "I can get one of those, though."

McKay shook his head cavalierly, but adjusted the position of the bag's strap, obviously struggling with its weight.

"No, that's all right," he replied with false bravado. "This is nothing. I carry stuff heavier than this like three, four days a week."

Keller smiled affectionately. There was no need to disabuse him of his hyperbole, but she didn't want him to hurt his back.

"Why don't we take all that back to the Jumper first? I don't think we'll need most of it."

McKay did his best to mask his relief behind a non-committal shrug, and the doctor found herself unsettled by how ludicrously endearing it was that he even bothered to try.

She found herself watching him as they walked through the courtyard. Something about the way he moved through life, about the way he took in everything around him was fascinating. His mind was always working overtime, no doubt laboring to solve lingering conundrums or pouring over his various mistakes and wondering what might have been. There was so much more to him than anyone knew.

* * *

Her final cursory stroll through the town had proven fruitless, just as McKay had said it would, but he didn't complain. In fact, he'd been fairly upbeat. Despite his quips and asides about the "primitive" nature of the early industrial society, she could tell he'd been just as relieved as her that they'd been able to inoculate the Pagoans before the recently resurgent Lacatan Blight could be introduced by one of their unknowingly-infected trading partners. It was a simple disease to prevent, but virtually untreatable after incubation. Thankfully, the Pagoans would never face that pain. 

A proud, kind people, they'd expressed their gratitude – both for the medical assistance and for McKay's chemistry and physics insights – with great sincerity, promising the Lanteans a lasting friendship. In a galaxy this dangerous, that wasn't an empty offer.

Lieutenant Cardinal turned in his chair in the Jumper cockpit, looking past the rest of his team in the cargo hold to Keller and McKay, who were making their way up the ramp.

"Y'all finished?" the southerner asked.

McKay nodded.

"Yes. And as delightful as this jaunt has been, I have a warm meal and a heating pad waiting for me, so…"

Cardinal smiled and turned back to the control console in front of him.

"I'll have ya back before y'know it, Dr. McKay."

Tapping a circular button on the panel in front of him, there was a faint hiss as he got in touch with the other Jumper.

"Captain Donovan, this is Cardinal. We're ready for departure."

McKay vaguely heard Donovan's reply as he settled in on one of the benches in the cargo hold, barely able to suppress a satisfied exclamation when Keller crossed over to sit down beside him, rather than sitting down beside one of the soldiers, who she'd been closer to.

As the ramp began to retract, the doctor turned to her friend.

"Any reason you're so anxious to get back besides dinner and a heating pad?"

McKay laid his head back against the wall.

"If I never see this place again, it'll be too soon. I don't know how they've come that far as a society without understanding the basic properties of physics."

Keller smiled slyly.

"Well, it wasn't _all_ bad, was it?" she asked, clarifying when McKay turned to look at her. "The trip, I mean."

The astrophysicist stared at her dumbly for a moment before he understood what she meant.

"Oh! No!" he said quickly. "No, it was… um… pleasant… for… brief stretches."

Keller looked at him a second more, still smiling, then laid her head against the wall as McKay had moments earlier.

"I thought so too."

McKay sat there for a few instants, the gears turning in his mind, but he couldn't think of anything else to say, or at least not anything that wouldn't make him look like a fool. He didn't have the chance anyway, pulled out of his musings by Cardinal's voice from the cockpit as the Jumper slowly took flight.

"Hey, Dr. McKay, any reason the radio was so staticy when I was talkin' to the Cap?"

"From what I've gathered, PYL-441 is mired in year-round electrical storms."

"They mus' be strong suckers to effect _this _planet too."

"Yes, quite. So I'd advise you to avoid it."

Cardinal grinned reassuringly.

"You just sit back and relax, Doc. It'll be smooth sailing."

McKay laid his back again, letting out a skeptical grunt, but leaving it at that. He'd heard Sheppard utter such platitudes before, and six times out of ten the words proved ironic before long.

His discomfort wasn't lost on Keller.

"You don't _ever_ relax, do you?"

McKay rolled his head to look at her.

"What? Sure I do."

"No, you don't. Right now, you're picturing all the horrific things that could happen to us on the way home."

"I am not," he shot back defensively. He wanted to hold his ground on the issue, as a matter of pride more than anything else, but she just stared back at him until he could barely remember his own name, and he finally relented.

"Okay, I might be, um… pondering… the various outcomes, but that's hardly proof that I _never_ relax. I mean, I took this long shower yesterday morning that was just… well, you had to be there…" He paused, realizing what he'd just said. "Oh, I mean, not like… _you_ be there _personally_ for the shower and nudity aspect, but just because it was… um, uh, um, you know… uh, relaxing… the… the water…"

McKay finally managed to stop himself when he heard a snort from one of the soldiers sitting across from him. He turned and glared at the offending party.

"Stop, Doc. Please," the sergeant laughed. "This is painful."

The astrophysicist tightened his lips, looking back at Keller for the briefest of moments with an embarrassed smile before turning his head away with a soft sigh, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone.

He was quite surprised and a little amazed when he felt Keller's small hand on his forearm, rubbing two reassuring circles with her thumb before she pulled it back.

McKay turned to her for another short instant, smiling again, this time without shame, but with gratitude. It would have been incredibly easy for her to let him sit there feeling like an idiot. But she never seemed to do that to him – well, at least not in mixed company. It struck him how much nicer she was than Sam.

The Jumper glided through the upper atmosphere with ease, then sputtered above it into outer space, the second Jumper flying beside it. The space gate was in view in the distance, a tiny speck to the naked eye.

When McKay heard Keller speak again, he was surprised by the undercurrent of nervousness he heard in her voice.

"Hey, are you… busy later?"

"Hmm? No, not really. Why?"

Her words came out in something of a rush.

"Well, this may seem kind of stupid, especially to someone who runs around the cosmos all the time like you, but when I was on Earth last month, I was going through some of my old stuff and I found this telescope I got when I was a kid. So I was kind of wondering if maybe later you might like to…"

She trailed off, assuming he got the point, but McKay waited as if she planned to finish, letting an uncomfortable moment linger between them. Keller suddenly felt very self-conscious about the presence of the two soldiers across from her, but they were at least polite enough to pretend they weren't listening in.

After a pause that felt like forever, McKay finally realized it was his turn to speak.

"Oh! You were asking – yeah, I – sure, that sounds nice. I had one too. It's been a while, though. I might not be as precise as I am with most things."

Keller smiled shyly.

"Well, I imagine between the two of us, we can figure it out."

"Sure, yeah. Absolutely."

"Well, then, that's… good. Should be fun."

McKay was at a loss once more for a segues or concluding thought, so he just smiled and nodded, then awkwardly turned away, catching a glance at the sergeant – who was trying not to snicker – out of the corner of his eye. He wanted to tell the young militant to mind his own business, or better yet, to punch him in the mouth, but that wasn't particularly good etiquette, and he was pretty sure the kid could beat the crap out of him anyway.

The scientist was ripped from his reverie by the sudden and unexpected blare of a warning siren from the front of the Jumper. He shot up off of the bench instinctively, angling around to get a look into the cockpit.

"What's going on?!"

Cardinal didn't look back, his hands flying over the controls as a quartet of Wraith hive-ships appeared on the holographic screen above the main console.

"I may've been mistaken in my forecast'a clear sailin'," the Lieutenant deadpanned. "I've got four hive-ships dead ahead, just dropped out of hyperspace."

McKay sprang up into the cockpit, looking over the man's shoulder out through the view window. The hive-ships were directly in their path, setting up a makeshift blockade in front of the space gate.

"Where did they come from?" the scientist asked in confoundment. "I've never seen a Wraith out this far."

Keller spoke up from behind him.

"Their food source has been thinned out by the Replicators. They probably don't have a choice."

"I'm not too interested in the 'why' right now," Cardinal said as he began to turn the Jumper about. "I'm interested in gettin' outta here."

Keller frowned as she saw the ship turning..

"Wait, what are you doing?!" she asked. "We need to get to the gate."

"Ma'am, that's a losing proposition," Cardinal replied coolly, before tapping the radio control on the console. "Captain Donovan, come in. This is Cardinal. Four bogeys blocking the gate. Please advise."

McKay frowned when Donovan's response came back too garbled to discern, his voice lost in a sea of static. With a frustrated sigh, the scientist shook his head.

"Too much interference. You won't be able to get him."

To the Lieutenant's credit, he wasn't fazed.

"Suggestions?"

His question was punctuated by a direct hit from a Wraith energy weapon, which rocked the Jumper and startled Keller, who let out a panicked gasp. This wasn't McKay's first dance, though, so he swallowed his fear and replied grimly.

"We can't win a firefight. We have to get out of here."

Several more shots found the hull of the Jumper despite Cardinal's attempts at evasive maneuvers, and Keller was thrown back, falling to the floor. McKay moved to help her, but was knocked off of his feet himself by the next volley of fire from the Hive-ships.

The scientist grunted as he pushed himself up to his knees, craning his head to look at Cardinal when the soldier yelled back to him.

"Doc! The electrical storm on tha' third planet, would it mess with sensors too?"

McKay knew what he was getting at.

"Yes, but it's not a good idea!" the scientist replied, as he grabbed Keller's arm and pulled her up beside him. "It could easily knock out _our_ navigation system too, maybe even the entire computer!"

The sergeant – forgotten for a few moments – now standing in the cockpit beside the other soldier, responded sardonically.

"If you have a better idea, we're all ears."

McKay had nothing to say to that. For once, he had no ideas at all, no brilliant epiphanies to pull them back from the cliff's edge. He looked to Keller, then back at the sergeant helplessly.

Cardinal waited a few moments, hoping the scientist would speak, but when the genius said nothing, he took matters into his own hands.

"All right," the soldier said. "We can't take much more of this. I'll try t'lose em' in the atmosphere."

As if on cue, another shot rocked the Jumper, eliciting a brilliant burst of sparks from overhead.

McKay looked out through the view window from beside Keller in the cargo hold, spotting the second Jumper taking fire alongside theirs. It seemed Donovan had had the same idea as Cardinal, as both proceeded at maximum speed toward the volatile PYL-441.

As they approached the planet, the Wraith in close pursuit, the cabin lights began to flicker, followed by the lights on the navigation console. It reminded Keller of the way the power used to fade in and out of her college dorm room during inclement weather.

The Jumper began to shake – not from the Wraith's volleys, though, but from the unstable pulses of energy escaping PYL-441's atmosphere. At first, they were mild tremors, like the kind you'd feel on a tame roller-coaster, but they got progressively worse and worse.

While the Lanteans had managed for the moment to elude the Wraith, their proximity to the planet posed an even greater danger.

"You're too close!" McKay shouted over the roar of the turbulence. "You have to pull up!"

The cabin lights finally went out for good.

"I can't!" Cardinal yelled back, his hands moving futilely over the console. "I've lost total control of navigation! The computer is out!"

It wasn't the most useful thing to say, but McKay's mouth got ahead of his brain.

"Gee, who could have seen _that _coming?!"

The Jumper dipped into the atmosphere, careening out of control as it was thrust into the storm, the sound deafening, the resplendent flashes of light blinding. Cardinal had no control whatsoever over the ship's course, and there wasn't a thing at his disposal but the power of pleas and prayer.

Those prayers, though, fell for fulfillment upon the ears of an unhearing universe, for but moments later, the view window cracked, and over the course of some seconds, the fissure grew until the glass finally shattered, atmosphere pouring into the Jumper. Cardinal was pulled mercilessly out of his seat and into the storm.

McKay, acting with more clarity and less clumsiness than could be reasonably expected of him, slammed his hand against the door control as he was pulled toward the cockpit, left to watch helplessly as the sergeant and the other soldier were thrown through the broken window.

Instantaneously, the emergency bulkhead deployed, cutting the cargo hold off from the cockpit. McKay slumped back against the wall, his eyes immediately seeking out Keller, who he happily found unscathed, clutching a harness attached to one of the benches.

It probably didn't matter, though. He'd likely just prolonged the inevitable.

The Jumper continued to spin out of control, and McKay found himself tossed again, this time to the opposite wall, where he struck his head before falling limply to the floor in a semi-conscious daze.

He could hear Keller calling his name – screaming it – but there was nothing he could do to quell her fears, even as he felt his own fade away.

It all felt unimportant somehow as he was swallowed by space and time.

* * *

A.N: Like this a little, a lot? Despise it a little, a lot? Leave a review and let me know! 


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed the first chapter. It's much appreciated. To anon, who kindly offered some potential concerns: on the second point, I realized I hadn't clarified the arrival of the hive-ships well, so I added a short dialogue addendum in Chap. 1 that confirms it; on the first point, not to worry, because it's actually a purposeful plot point that is addressed in this chapter!

Thanks to all who are reading, and I do hope sincerely that you enjoy this chapter. Let me know what you think!

* * *

What was that dark void bearing down on him, looking into his soul? It was so hard to face that emptiness with a will to not surrender. Who was he? Where was he? And what was that angelic voice calling to him from beyond the black? 

"Rodney."

Rodney. Rodney. He supposed that meant something. Was it his name?

"Rodney."

It was sweet, but insistent, the voice. It wanted something from him, but it wasn't coarse or demanding like the sick ether through which he floated. It was kind, compassionate. He wanted to do its bidding.

"Rodney."

McKay was sucked out of the darkness and spat back into reality, pain flashing through his head and through his limbs and torso. Where was he? What happened?

In his confusion, he must have mumbled or groaned or maybe both, because he saw Keller move into his line of sight an instant later, her cool hand pressed against his forehead. It looked like she was shushing him, but he couldn't quite distinguish the sound from the rattling in his head.

She kept talking, but it was just gibberish to him, so he found himself looking her over. There was a nasty scrape on her right cheek, the only blemish he'd ever seen on her face, and it somehow made him angry to know that it was there, that even the smallest of harms had been done her.

Her jacket was torn too, a piece of the fabric ripped off in the middle of her arm. He wondered if she'd been lacerated there too, or if there were injuries he couldn't see. She looked so worried; he could see it in her eyes. What was she saying? What was she trying to say to him? He took a breath and concentrated.

"Rodney…? Can you hear me?"

McKay nodded weakly. "Mm-hmm."

Keller let out a shaky breath, her lips turning up in a wide smile of relief.

"Hey, stranger," she whispered soothingly, brushing back his hair. "I was afraid you weren't going to wake up."

McKay grunted as he tried to sit up, but the movement proved too taxing, a sharp pain shooting through his head, so he offered no resistance when he felt Keller's hand on his chest, forcing him back down.

"Don't try to move yet," she chided gently. "You took a nasty shot to your head."

McKay did his best to swallow a groan, feeling inexplicably self-conscious about appearing weak. It didn't seem like he had much of a choice, though.

"Wh – what happened?"

Keller's smile, which had lingered for a time, evaporated with that question. She looked around, as if she might point outside to offer some context, but there no windows in the cargo hold, just the two of them and the modest light provided by the emergency lanterns.

"We crashed," she said bluntly, wishing she knew another way to say it. "What do you remember?"

McKay blinked, wracking his half-functioning brain.

"It was… we were attacked by the Wraith."

"That's right. We couldn't make it to the gate."

McKay nodded, ignoring the stab of pain the subtle motion inspired.

"Cardinal tried to lose them in the atmosphere," he recalled. "I told that idiot it wouldn't work."

Keller frowned at his disparaging of the dead, but she didn't call him out on it. He was concussed, and probably hadn't yet connected the dots on that front.

"We lost control, and went down. Lieutenant Cardinal, Lieutenant Mince, and Sergeant Perry were…"

She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, but when her eyes met McKay's, she didn't have to. It stung her to watch the realization wash into his optics, to see reflected in another the horror she'd felt earlier.

"We're on the planet then," the scientist blurted out, an edge of panic overpowering his disorientation. "We're on the planet. Unbreathable atmosphere. That's not good. That is _not_ good."

Keller swallowed, unsettled by his change in demeanor.

"Oh, this is not good," he repeated. "So, so, _so_ not good!"

"Rodney, stop saying that!"

When McKay paused and looked up at her, almost with an expression of hurt, part of her was inclined to let him carry on, but she needed to get him grounded because he was the only hope they had.

She softened her voice, but it remained firm.

"Rodney, one of us needs to not freak out here, and I'm sorry to say, it's going to have to be you, because I don't have the faintest clue what to do."

McKay's acerbic tongue nearly lashed out before he could process her words, but he showed surprising and admirable restraint, clamping his mouth shut. She was looking at him with such hope and confidence and need. He thought about that. She _needed_ him.

Moments later, he finally nodded.

"Okay," the scientist said, letting out a calming breath, compartmentalizing his overwhelming fear. "Okay. Um, you're not – are you hurt?"

She glanced at the hole in her jacket.

"Some scrapes, bruises, and I cut up my arm a little, but it's nothing to write home about. You, on the other hand, have a concussion."

McKay sighed, noticing for the first time that she'd used his jacket as a pillow for him.

"Lovely," he mumbled.

"You've got a nasty gash on your stomach too." He looked down, noticing a bloody white bandage where a piece of his shirt should have been. "You're lucky you didn't break any ribs, the way you were tossed around."

McKay grunted without malice.

"'Lucky' is crashing on an alien planet and getting out of it with a couple scrapes."

"Just karma, I guess," the doctor said with a small smile. "I'm a doer of good deeds."

McKay rolled his eyes, trying to sit up. This time, Keller helped him, gripping his bicep with both hands and pulling him toward her. He managed to get off the floor, but he had to lean on her to keep from sliding back down. She gladly accepted his weight.

"You're talking to the wrong guy," McKay quipped. "I've got the market cornered on good deeds. I'm a good deed _factory_."

Keller laughed softly as the scientist laid his head on her shoulder, the injured party sighing at the effort it had taken just to sit up. She was surprised by his movement, or at least by how comfortable he seemed doing it, but she didn't at all mind. It was actually kind of nice. She needed human contact about then.

"Sorry," he mumbled against her, seeming only now to realize what he was doing.

Keller laid her hand on the back of his head, scratching his scalp reassuringly.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about."

She could tell by the long, labored breaths that followed that McKay didn't agree with her. It eluded her what he could possibly be loathing himself for, but he was resourceful that way. She wasn't going to push him to share it with her, but she hoped he would of his own volition.

After a time, he did.

"It's my fault," he murmured against her.

"What is?"

"Everything."

"I don't understand," she coaxed. "What do you mean?"

"The Jumpers. It's my fault."

Keller frowned.

"No, it's not. It was the storms. There's nothing you could've done about that."

McKay sighed in frustration.

"No, no, that's not what I mean! We shouldn't have used them at all."

"Why not?"

"I was trying to upgrade main system efficiency on them last week. I was going to do it to all of the Jumpers if it worked, but something went wrong."

"What?"

"The cloaks went offline on both of them. I wanted to lock them down until I could fix them, but when this mission came up, I didn't have a choice. All the other Jumpers were already deployed on other aid missions."

"You said it yourself: you didn't have a choice. We couldn't wait it out, Rodney. The Pagoans could very well have been infected if we had."

McKay pulled his head off of her shoulder, managing to keep himself upright, looking away.

"Well, it doesn't much matter now, does it? We're here, Cardinal's dead, and the Pagoans are probably being _culled_ by the Wraith as we speak," he spat, more at himself than her. "Maybe we couldn't have helped the Pagoans, but we could've helped ourselves."

Keller placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Rodney, there's no way you could have known this would happen. And anyway, it wasn't just your call to make. Colonel Carter and Cardinal and Captain Donovan had to agree to it too, didn't they?"

McKay's eyes darkened, and she knew she hadn't gotten through to him. He wasn't yet ready to hear what she was trying to tell him. Maybe he never would be.

The scientist effectively ended the conversation, turning onto his hands and knees, trying to push himself off of the floor and stand up. Keller shot up immediately, grabbing his far hip with one hand and pressing the other against his chest to steady him as he staggered to his feet.

"Take it easy," she said, keeping hold of him as he swayed.

McKay brought a hand up to rub his head, surprised when he felt something smooth. He looked to Keller for explanation.

"I had to butterfly a few cuts," she said. "I'd have preferred stitches, but somehow with three bags worth of supplies, I managed to leave out a suture kit."

McKay nodded, but didn't comment, moving sluggishly instead to a computer panel on the wall. Keller reluctantly released her hold on him.

The scientist wasn't surprised to find the computer dead. The interference had knocked it out initially, and the crash likely finished it off. His glower wasn't lost on Keller.

"Can you fix it?"

"Doubtful. And even if I could, it wouldn't matter. I can't pull up navigation back here."

"If you got the computer online, though, couldn't we send out a distress call?"

McKay let out a breath, then shrugged.

"We could try, but I doubt it would make it out of the atmosphere."

"What about the radios? I tried using mine while you were out, but I couldn't get anything."

McKay's eyes widened, and Keller immediately recognized the boyish look of wonder. He had an idea.

"What is it?"

The scientist's eyes darted about the Jumper wildly, seeming to look through her at one point, and he began to snap his fingers, pacing.

"Okay, okay…" he said, to himself at first, before finally meeting Keller's inquisitive gaze. "We may not be able to send a message through the atmosphere, but if I boost the signal enough, maybe I could send a message across the planet surface."

Keller's own eyes lit up with understanding.

"A message to the other Jumper."

"Exactly!"

"Do you really think you could do that?"

McKay's excited expression wavered.

"Well… I don't know. But it's about our only chance right now," he said, wanting to kick himself when he saw the look of fear and uncertainty in Keller's eyes. "I mean, maybe not our _only_ chance. Um, um… for, for all we know, Donovan's already looking for us. The other Jumper could have had a much better landing. Or, or, or, or, um… other… possibilities I can't think of right now."

Keller smiled disarmingly.

"It's okay, Rodney. Just do what you can."

"Right," he replied after a moment, kneeling down in front of one of the benches, reaching underneath into a storage bin.

When he pulled his hands back, they were holding a computer tablet. The screen was blank at first, even after McKay tapped it a few times to bring it out of its hibernation mode. He'd hoped it might be unaffected by the storm since it was self-contained, unlike the Jumper's computer systems, which were entirely interconnected.

"Come on," he growled in frustration, banging the tablet against the bench repeatedly.

Keller watched uncomfortably, tempted to tell him to stop, but after the fifth smack, the screen finally flickered to life, drawing a satisfied smirk from the scientist, who took up the tablet pen and went to work.

The doctor stood there awkwardly, just watching him for a minute or so. Restless, she finally went and sat down on the bench a few feet away from McKay, who was attempting to access the Jumper's computer core on the tablet.

She thought maybe it was annoying him the way she kept looking over at him, but she couldn't help it and he didn't remark on it anyway. Maybe he didn't notice, because each moment he wasn't working, he was massaging his head roughly, obviously feeling considerable pain. Perhaps the best indication of how much it hurt was his lack of complaint. If it were a minor ache, he'd have been grousing about it, but the worse it was, the more tight-lipped the confusing man got.

Keller finally forced herself to look away, thinking she was being incredibly rude. She managed to sit there in silence for a few minutes, but her restlessness proved overwhelming, and without realizing she was doing it, she began to sing to herself quietly.

"This is radio nowhere. Is there anybody alive out there? This is radio nowhere. Is there anybody alive out there?"

She'd already begun humming the instrumental section to herself before she finally noticed McKay had stopped working and was watching her curiously. The doctor ducked her head with a mild blush and an embarrassed smile.

"Sorry," she said. "I tend to have these nervous habits, and singing is one of them. It just kind of happens. I'll stop."

McKay continued to stare at her, not saying anything, and Keller wondered just what it was he was looking for from her. A mere instant before she could ask him, the scientist offered her a small smile and returned to his tablet.

"It's all right," he said finally, not looking up. "It's kind of nice."

Keller felt something in her stomach which she couldn't account for. She hadn't been expecting him to say that, but she was glad he did. Truth be told, now that she'd caught herself, she didn't _want_ to keep singing, but something told her he'd be disappointed if she didn't.

She began again, a little softer than before.

"I was spinnin' 'round a dead dial, just another lost number in a file. Dancin' down a dark hole, just searchin' for a world with some soul…

This is radio nowhere. Is there anybody alive out there?

This is radio nowhere. Is there anybody alive out there?"

McKay shuddered.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Hi! Thanks to all those who have reviewed. And to you merry band of alert-ers and favorite-ers who outnumber the reviewers, be not shy, my friends! I'd love to hear criticism, praise, questions, or suggestions from you. So, thanks to all who are reading, and leave me a review to let me know how it's coming! I hope you enjoy this installment.

* * *

"How long do we have before oxygen becomes a problem?" 

McKay didn't look up from the tablet, which seemed the past few minutes to have provided him no small amount of frustration.

"At least 55 hours or so."

Keller raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"That's… good news, actually. I was expecting the figure to be more grim."

"Well, after that whole 'sunk jumper' episode last year, I made some modifications to the life support failsafes."

"'Sunk jumper?'"

McKay paused, looking up at her.

"Long story. Picture this, but... worse, basically."

Keller smiled ironically.

"How could it have been worse?"

McKay shrugged as if to concede the point, returning his attention to the tablet, but then he added, "Well, this time I have you, at least."

Keller didn't say anything to that, but she had to fight the urge to hug him. It might have been worth it just to see the look on his face. As it was, though, he had no idea how charming his words had been. Maybe she'd tell him one of these times.

He continued his work intently, though she didn't have a clue what it was he was actually doing. It wasn't worth asking him, and she didn't want to be a bother anyway. She sat down on the floor, careful to stay out of his line of sight, and she tried to remain as unobtrusive as possible, making sure not to sing or hum or tap a beat.

It was McKay who broke the silence.

"Do we have anything to eat?"

Keller shot up instantly, as if the floor were burning, and the scientist smiled at the sight.

"Yeah!" she said quickly. "Yeah, we should have something."

McKay felt a pang of guilt. She'd obviously been losing her wits sitting there, clearly fretting about disturbing his work. He'd thought he might have disabused her of the notion that she was a nuisance of any sort already, but she was far too polite and hard on herself for her own good.

He watched as she rifled through one of the soldiers' packs. It was a tad morbid, the thought of snacking on a dead man's harvest, but his stomach was telling him in no uncertain terms to get over that reservation.

She turned to face him with a triumphant smile, holding two MREs and two bottles of water. He mustered up a gracious curl of the lips, accepting his portion as she sat down next to him, a little closer than was necessary.

"Thanks," he said, glancing at the label. "Cajun chicken."

Keller checked her own.

"Looks like you win," she replied, holding up hers with a mock-frown. "Beef stew."

McKay smirked as he opened the package.

"Karma, I guess, huh?"

Keller glared in jest.

"Oh, that's cute. Very clever."

"Thanks. _I_ thought so."

As they dug into their mildly palatable, twelve-hundred calorie meals, Keller was struck by how tired he looked, one eye a bit bloodshot, his face drawn.

"How's it coming with the computer?" she asked, purposefully keeping her tone light.

McKay let out a long breath that – for just an instant – made him appear considerably older than his thirty-seven years.

"Well, either I hit my head _really_ hard, or I'm not as smart as I purport to be."

"I'm going to guess 'not good,' then."

"That's the gist of it," the scientist replied. "I haven't been able to access the core yet."

"What's the problem?"

McKay paused, his fork suspended in the air, as he tried to think of a way he could explain it without insulting her intelligence. He wouldn't have feared patronizing Sheppard or Ronon or even Zelenka, but he couldn't imagine doing it to her.

"It's kind of like taking a light bulb that's burned out, and trying to find a way to give it juice without replacing anything inside of it."

"Well, if it would help, I could get Benjamin Franklin down here with a kite."

McKay chuckled, a sound heard very rarely, and she couldn't stymie a brief rush of self-adulation for being the one to bring it out of him. They finished eating in silence after that, but it was the companionable sort, no discomfort at all between them.

When they were finished, Keller collected the empty containers from him and set them out of the way. Without a word, McKay took up his tablet again, one hand clutching the pen and the other hand rubbing his temple. The doctor watched with a helpless frown, leaving him to his task.

Keller sat on the bench across from him, doing her best to observe him discreetly. He seemed to enter another plane of existence when he worked, a sort of hyper-reality where the only thing of any consequence was the specific task he was lending himself to at a particular moment. She'd always had a reputation for being a focused, dogged worker, but this was something else entirely. It was as if his every effort were undertaken with the knowledge that failure would be cataclysmic.

Then it hit her: failure _would be_ cataclysmic in so much of what he did. She understood the pressure that came with lives being in one's hands, but how he wasn't overwhelmed by the sheer scale of his duties was beyond her. Everyone on Atlantis, herself included, would have been dead more times than she could ably recall if not for his fierce intellect and determination. No one appreciated that the way they ought to. It made her kind of angry thinking about it.

McKay's groan extracted her from her thoughts. When she looked over, he'd cast the tablet aside and was hunched forward, his face buried in his hands.

Keller was up immediately, crossing the distance between them in a flash, and she crouched down in front of him, gripping one of his forearms.

"Rodney? You okay?"

The scientist didn't reply, sitting there silent but for his tightly-controlled breathing, which was a clear indication that he'd tried but failed to suppress this pained reaction. She felt an irrational burst of annoyance or hurt that he'd hoped to conceal his discomfort from her. Maybe that was just human nature, though, the same as any wounded animal.

"Come on, tough guy," she coaxed softly, gently tugging on one of his arms. To her pleasant surprise, he let her pull it away from his face, revealing his pain-creased forehead, eyes shut hard. "It's getting pretty bad, huh?"

McKay's mouth opened in a way very familiar to her. He was about to let loose a smartass remark of some variety. But incredibly, before it could escape, he clamped his mouth shut, only opening it again when he'd managed to summon a brave rejoinder.

"It's okay," he said, his voice a bit gravelly. "I just… I just need a minute."

Keller reached up hesitantly, grazing his cheek with the back of her hand.

"You want some more ibuprofen?"

"I was thinking more of something you can't get without a prescription," he admitted.

Keller smiled sympathetically.

"I wish I could, but I'd prefer if you stayed awake with a head injury like this, and we need you to…" She couldn't bring herself to finish the thought, hating how selfish the rest of it would have seemed – 'stay conscious so you can single-handedly get us out of here.'

McKay's voice held none of the contempt she may have felt for herself.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said without derision. "It's okay. I'll just – just, um, sit for a minute, and then I'll get back to work. Promise."

The way he spoke that last word, as if he was used to people demanding such things of him, just about cleaved her heart in two. Was he so used to compassion being absent or dormant? She decided then and there that he'd learn never to expect such arrogation from_ her_.

Keller moved up onto the bench beside him, sliding her hand down his arm to the elbow. He tensed when he felt her pulling on it again.

"What are you – "

"Come 'ere," she said. Sensing his confusion, she smiled encouragingly. "It's all right, come 'ere."

McKay didn't resist as she pulled his much larger body toward hers until he was semi-supine, his head brought to rest on her lap. When she laid her cool hand on his face, she could feel the tension ooze out of him. He let out a soft sigh as she began to rub his temple faintly, enough to soothe, but not enough to aggravate.

The scientist felt his mind wandering, drifting to that middle state of consciousness between sleep and awake, but he was entirely cognizant of Keller's every fleeting touch, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt such satisfaction, even as the pain behind his eyes lingered and taunted him.

"You're lovely," he found himself blurting out against his will. "Really, really lovely."

Keller let out a small laugh, taking note of his slightly slurred tone.

"You _did_ hit your head pretty hard, didn't you?"

"Just sayin'," he mumbled.

"Well, thank you for saying so, but I won't hold it against you later. I need you to stay awake for me, though, okay?"

He nodded against her leg lazily.

"Sure, sure, anything you say."

Her smile prospered.

"Wow, I didn't know you had a 'pliable' side. I could get used to this."

"Me too," he slurred quietly.

While she couldn't help but admit a generous affection for the tired, innocent quality of his voice, she knew it was an indicator that he was sliding toward unconsciousness, and as much as she wished she could, the doctor couldn't let him sleep.

"Hey, why don't you tell me about how you met Sheppard? I've always wondered about that."

She could hear him smiling.

"No, you haven't."

"Sure I have. Were you guys friends right away, or did he have to grow on you?"

McKay took note of the fact that she'd said "did he have to grow on you," as opposed to "did you have to grow on him," as most others might have presumed. He wished he had the strength to reach up and kiss her right then, but he didn't. And she might have slapped him if he did anyway.

"We always got along okay," he said. "Got in the habit of saving each other's lives."

Her hand drifted into his hair.

"Just a couple action hero pals. Like a Lethal Weapon movie."

"I'm more of an Indiana Jones, I think."

"Well, who would Sheppard be then?"

"You remember that short Asian kid from 'Temple of Doom?'"

Keller laughed again, and McKay could feel the baby tremors it induced. Against his better judgment, he reached underneath her leg and hooked his arm around it, nestling closer to her. She thought she felt him tense once more, but it didn't last; he relaxed again when her hand began a lazy path through his hair.

As she looked down on him, the scientist clutching her to him as if she were the only thing he had in this life, she suddenly realized that she liked that notion very much. To presume less would have been naïve. McKay was an angel dressed as a hapless wolf, and she thought she might be the only one who knew it, including the man himself.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Great things to all of you who have followed and let feedback for this story. It is greatly appreciated. For those who are following, but haven't hit that review button yet, I'm always curious to hear the good, the bad, the confusing, suggestions... you name it! I can't say for certain, but I may well take some... liberties, shall we say... with science in this chapter. My goal is generally to stay true to the "Laws of Atlantis" moreso than the Laws of Physics. In any event, I hope you enjoy this installment, and I hope you'll offer some feedback. Thanks!

(And how great was that finale?!)

* * *

It wasn't clear how long they stayed like that – twenty minutes maybe, perhaps an hour – but though he loathed to extricate himself from her warm grasp, McKay forced himself back to a sitting position, and after a brief exchange during which the scientist tried to pretend their tender moment hadn't happened, he tiredly took up the computer tablet and resumed working. 

Keller didn't watch him. She laid down on the other bench and shut her eyes, trying not to contemplate their predicament, but thinking of other things – a sundry spectrum of topics that seemed to bleed together. She thought about losing Beckett and Weir, about the way the water looked at night in Atlantis' pale light, about the scar her dad had on his arm that she'd always thought looked like the profile of a human face, about how it had been a long time since she'd gotten sick, about how nice it was to count McKay and Teyla and Sheppard as friends. Her thoughts lingered on the last cognition; maybe she was just kidding herself about how she saw one of them.

A couple hours went by. Neither of them spoke during that time. McKay's frustration was evident, and she imagined it was proportional to his progress, or lack thereof. He looked familiarly irritable. She hesitated to utter a word, because that expression of his was surprisingly formidable. But she couldn't stop herself.

"How's it coming?"

"How does it _look_ like it's coming?" the scientist snapped.

Keller flinched, but let his tone roll off of her.

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked."

McKay let out an angry, aggressive breath, using it to energize his response.

"It is _nearly impossible_ to access the computer with the miniscule bit of power I have at my disposal. I'm not even sure it would be possible if I _did _have the power. The entire core might have been completely fried by the original overload. And there's absolutely _no_ way I can boost the signal strength of our radios without the power from the computer."

Keller nodded.

"Catch 22."

McKay scrubbed his hand over his face roughly.

"Something like that."

Keller sighed, not sure where to look. She took a chance and kept her eyes on the scientist.

"So… what do we do then?"

"I'll figure something out," McKay replied distantly, adding after a moment, "like I always do."

The doctor frowned deeply. The remark was lacking his usual bravado, and the acidity of his previous words had ebbed away, replaced by a weary resignation. As much as she was troubled on behalf of his mental health, though, she had to admit it scared her that he was deflated. McKay was at his best discovering solutions to seemingly impossible conundrums when he had something to prove, when he was driven by his desire not to let anyone down. She didn't get the sense that that was driving him now.

Keller was desperate to find something to say, something to inspire him. Motivational speaking wasn't exactly her strong suit, though. She didn't do well in dramatic situations outside of the medical realm.

"I guess maybe it's time for Ben Franklin after all," she joked lamely, thinking how flat and paltry it sounded to her own ears.

McKay exhaled darkly.

"We don't need an inventor; we need a priest."

That properly silenced the young physician. She felt a suffocating lump form in her throat as she considered the words. McKay was obviously a cynic, but she'd never heard him sound so matter-of-fact about it. The words had been delivered with an eerie calmness that was decidedly un-Rodney.

She looked away from him. When she started speaking, she missed the simultaneous look of epiphany that jolted McKay.

"Rodney, I know things seem – "

"Shut up."

Keller's mouth dropped open in surprise, and she turned back to him defiantly, oblivious to that look of wonder she should have recognized immediately.

"No, you're at least going to hear me – "

"Shut up," he said again, as if it were a greeting.

This time, Keller obliged, finally sensing that his curtness was more than simple acerbity. His eyes were darting rapidly from side to side, as if in caught in the pull of waking dream, and there was such joy hidden inside them that she thought perhaps he'd gone mad.

But then, like she'd seen in what seemed already to be countless binds, Rodney McKay delivered the big idea.

"Benjamin Franklin," he exclaimed cryptically.

Keller blinked.

"I don't… know what that means, Rodney."

McKay shook his head.

"Sorry, sorry. What you said before – get Benjamin Franklin down here with a kite – that's exactly what we need to do."

"Great. All we need is a cauldron and some magic words."

McKay ignored her rejoinder.

"The storm took out the computer because there was an influx of too much energy while it was running, right?"

"Yeah."

"And every system was effected because they're all interconnected through the core."

"I'll take your word for it."

"But the cloak wasn't operating before the mission."

"Can you just bottom-line this for me?"

"It's off-line."

"What is?"

"The cloak."

"Rodney, this is starting to feel like a vaudeville act!"

"I compartmentalized it from the computer core, so that I could examine it independently to diagnose the problem," he said, sighing at the confusion that lingered in her expression. "It wasn't operating or connected to the core, so it wasn't effected by the overload from the storm."

Keller nodded slowly, her curiosity growing.

"Okay. How does that help us?"

"The cloak and the shield are the same thing – same mechanism, different uses. Now I'm beginning to think the core was damaged beyond repair, but I can control the radios with the tablet. If I can modulate the frequency of the shield so that it _attracts_ electrical energy, I should be able to filter that into usable power to boost the radio signal."

"But don't you need power to even put the shield up?"

He was shaking his head before she'd even finished asking.

"No, no. There's not much, but enough for our purposes. It's like a handgun; you take the clip out and there's still a bullet in the chamber. It'll be weak, but each burst of energy it attracts will help charge it, like how you keep your car running to juice up the battery."

Keller regarded him with a small smile.

"I'm getting a little lost with all the metaphors," she said, pausing a moment. "But you're never wrong about these things, so I'll just have to trust you."

McKay cleared his throat.

"Well, I wouldn't say _never_, but…"

Keller squinted her eyes in curiosity, her smile growing lopsided as she pondered the implication.

"What? What did you do?"

The scientist shrugged with faux-casualness.

"I may have destroyed five-sixths of a solar system once," he replied, grabbing his tablet and continuing quickly, "Anyway, first I have to – "

"You destroyed a solar system?!"

McKay exhaled in aggravation.

"_Five-sixths_, I said," he shot back. "Like I was saying – "

Keller suppressed a small laugh at his absurd rationalization, but allowed him to continue.

" – it shouldn't be too difficult to get the shield working. The problem I was having before was integrating it into the core, which is obviously not a concern now."

"And what are the chances that it can do what we need it to?"

"I'd say five out of si – " McKay stopped abruptly. "I mean, uh… ten out of twelve."

Keller nodded, her amusement still plain. The scientist's eyes avoided her in that typical flustered way of his, before he held up the tablet again and muttered, "I'll just… get to work here."

Time passed again, and as before, Keller was left with little to do but watch McKay work and let her mind wander. She was beginning to feel utterly useless for her part in this continuing pattern. Maybe this was what patients' families felt like when she was busy trying to save their beloved ones' lives. It was a terrible feeling. It really was.

This time, though, it wasn't but minutes before McKay, with a hand rubbing his pained head, languishing over what she presumed was an input to the cloaking device – which the tablet was attached to with a small wire – looked across the room and found her gaze, wearing a smirk of tempered triumph.

"I think we may be in business."

"It's ready?"

"Sure," McKay replied. "As… ready as it's going to be."

"That's reassuring."

"Well, what do you_ want_ me to say, 'Take it to the bank, babe?!'"

Keller froze, regarding him with an unnamable expression.

"Did you just call me 'babe?'"

McKay froze himself, but more in that deer-in-the-headlights sense.

"Only… hypothetically."

The poor man looked so pitiful that Keller didn't have the heart to lead him into one of his rambling justifications, so she steered him back to the matter at hand.

"How long will it take?"

McKay recovered nicely.

"I don't know… a few minutes maybe? This is new territory for me."

"Okay," the doctor replied, looking away for a second. "Are we going to…?"

"Feel anything? Probably. At first, at least. The first few strikes will be the worst, because that's when the shield will be at its weakest."

"Could it be penetrated?"

"That's highly unlikely."

"But it's possible."

"Well, _anything_ is possible, but it's certainly not probable."

"Neither was crash-landing on a barren planet plagued by highly-concentrated, perpetual lightning."

McKay rolled his eyes, but he found himself smiling at her.

"You've been spending too much time with me. You're getting… gloomy."

Keller stared at him for a hard instant, but she couldn't help but smile back. She supposed it was one of a few things they had in common: apprehension at every turn when confronted by danger. It was a wonder habitually cool customers like Sheppard, Teyla, and Ronon could put up with either of them.

She let out a breath, then stood up.

"Maybe," she said. "But there's worse things."

"Than being gloomy?"

"No. The other part."

"What other part?"

Keller looked on the scientist with frustration.

"I'm trying to pay you a compliment, Rodney, but you don't seem to ever let me."

McKay looked contrite, but he still hadn't figured out what she was talking about.

"Oh. I – well, sorry. I'm just not used to being complimented," he said, before adding, "Except by myself. Or John when he wants to borrow something."

Keller nodded indulgently.

"It's all right."

McKay watched her momentarily, as if he expected her to say something more – clarify her original remark maybe – but when it became clear no such words were in queue, he clapped his hands together awkwardly.

"Well then, okay… let's, um… let's give this a try."

McKay picked up the tablet – still connected to the cloak interface – and he held his pen overtop of it. With one stroke, he'd be able to engage the shield, and Keller was fully expecting him to do so promptly. But McKay's hand just hovered above the screen for several seconds, and she was confused by the far-off look in his eyes.

"Rodney?"

He looked up at her tentatively, as if it were an act of immense courage. She waited for him to respond, looking disquisitive. When he finally did, it was nothing she'd have expected.

"I snapped at you earlier. I shouldn't have… done that, Jennifer. Sorry."

Keller's countenance was slowly ensconced in a strange, but satisfied smile. Where in the world had that come from? She didn't know, but wherever the words had formed, she liked them. Special treatment from the man with the acid tongue.

"Don't worry about it. I'd be less pleasant than you've been if my head hurt as much as I know yours does," she said, noting the lingering creases in his forehead.

McKay nodded casually, a cover for the unease he felt at making such a vulnerable remark, and he looked back down at the tablet, pressing the pen to the screen.

"Right then. Okay. Well, uh… here goes."

With one stroke, McKay could hear the malnourished, hollow hum of the shield as it was erected around the shell of the Jumper. In the next moment, the spacecraft was rocked by a vicious blow from above.

The scientist felt genuine surprise when his feet went out from under him.

Then he felt the second blow, dazed and half-lucid from where he lay on the floor.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thanks very much for all of the encouraging reviews. I appreciate each and every one, and some of them were quite thoughtful, which I appreciate even more. Truly, thank you to all who took the time to leave feedback.

I do hope I can help satiate the McKeller hunger, which is slowly building thanks to "The Last Man!"

Here is the latest installment. I hope you enjoy it, and as always, leave a review and let me know what you think. Thanks!

* * *

As he lay there, confused and disconnected, the jolts to the Jumper seemed to cease, replaced by a softer, looping trill that reminded him of Canada. It almost seemed close to him right then – Canada – as if he could reach out and touch it, but Keller's hand reaching out to touch _him_ disintegrated the delusion. 

"Rodney," she said, on her knees at his side like earlier. "You all right? Are you okay?"

He groaned, pressing a hand against his stomach, which hurt worse than he thought it should have. It was the same feeling he'd had in his arm when Kolya had dug around with his knife. He wondered what that meant.

"Oh God."

McKay looked to Keller with confusion. Why did she say that?

Then he lifted his hand and found the skin there invisible behind a blob of his own blood. That probably wasn't good, he thought. He couldn't imagine why it would be.

It took him a little while to realize she was speaking to him again.

"Rodney, I need you to press your hand against your stomach for just a minute, okay? Can you do that for me?"

Still groggy, not all there, he nodded docilely as if she were giving him a grocery list and let her guide his hand to the gash around his belly, which felt wider than it had been before.

"Good, that's good," she said, as if to a child, disappearing out of his viewpoint to rifle through one of her bags.

McKay's eyes refocused, the swimming in his head lessening, and he glanced down at his hand, drenched in his life-force. Blood. Pain. It hurt. It really _hurt_. That was all he could think of now.

"Oh – God – what – I'm bleeding. I'm _bleeding_, Jen!"

It was such a stupid thing to say, but his mouth and his mind were retarded by his shock. He could hear Keller looking for something – quickly, desperately – but she just wasn't going fast enough for his liking.

"It hurts. It really hurts."

"I know, Rodney; I know. Hold on. Just hold on a second."

Before he could speak again, she appeared above him, and with a gentle grasp, pulled his hand away from the wound, replacing it with gauze, which she pressed against it herself. McKay hissed immediately.

"Stop, stop, stop!" he gasped. "Please."

Keller laid her free hand on his face sympathetically, but didn't oblige him with her other one.

"Shh. It's okay, it's okay," she cooed. "Calm down. You'll be fine, Rodney. I just need to stop the bleeding."

McKay squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth. It's not as bad as you think, he told himself. It's _never_ as bad as you think. It's just a cut. Act like a man, Rodney. He could hear his father's voice saying that.

Keller pressed a second pad over the first, which was already soaked red. She didn't think it was as bad as it had seemed initially, but it was important still that she curtail the bleeding, lest it become something more serious. A glance at McKay birthed a new concern, though. He'd quieted; was he in shock?

"Still with me, Rodney?"

McKay nodded almost imperceptibly, sucking in shallow breaths through a mostly-closed mouth, trying as best he could not to cry out or speak. Be a man, be a man, be a man was the mantra. But it was harder in practice than it was in theory.

He had to keep the pain away from his brain, or at least away from his active cognitions. He thought about anything his mind could latch onto – how much he hated Kavanaugh, how annoying Sheppard was when he won at cards, the day he learned to calculate slope intercept in first grade, how petrified he was that Teyla would leave them once her baby was born, and the way Keller looked in soft light, the way she said his name like he was the only man alive, the way she treated him like a human being and not a caricature to be humiliated. She had such a kind soul; it was almost enough to make him pray. She just engaged everyone with such gentle dignity and warmth that he wondered how on Earth she was as insecure as she was. It was charming, though, the way she doubted herself. Only Keller could be that beautiful and brilliant and not have the faintest clue.

"Rodney?"

The scientist opened his eyes. And there she was. He stared at her blankly at first, not quite removed from his musings, and then he looked down the length of his own body, finding his t-shirt rolled up to his upper abdomen, and the gash on his stomach covered by several layers of gauze, the top-most only barely stained, the tide of blood seemingly stemmed.

"It looked a lot worse than it really was," Keller explained softly. "But it's gonna need quite a few stitches; I'll feel much better when we're back on Atlantis."

He liked the way she said "when," as if it were a certainty. That kind of optimism was scarce. It took him a few seconds to realize he'd not spoken to her in some time. She had a far too familiar look of worry etched on her face.

"It stopped bleeding," he said distantly.

Keller might have been concerned that he uttered something so obvious as if it were a revelation, but he continued before she could reply.

"The shield," he said, his eyes scanning the Jumper as if with the hope that they had an x-ray capacity. "It sounds like it's working."

McKay moved to sit up with the intention of checking the tablet for a progress report, but the moment he began the motion, he felt that searing pain in his stomach again and he laid right back down, unable to stifle a small, feeble groan that sounded profoundly pathetic to his own ears.

"Easy, easy," she admonished. "You're gonna make it bleed again."

He grunted.

"That information's less helpful than it would have been five seconds ago."

Keller's hand, stroking his arm soothingly, softened her blunt retort.

"Well, if you didn't go around getting yourself hurt all the time, you wouldn't have to worry about it."

"Oh, so this is my fault?" he asked, the bite entirely gone from his voice, replaced by a hint of the pain he fault.

She smiled gently and retracted her hand, but didn't respond.

As she pulled back, he could see her clearly, noting with revulsion the blood on her pants, on her hand, and it made him feel guilty. It was like he'd marked her, infected her with what he was. He felt better, though, when he watched her turn to her bag a moment later and dig out some disinfectant to clean off the offended skin.

The scientist forced all of that surfeit minutia from his mind when Keller looked back at him.

"I need to check on the shield," he said, silently implying he'd need a physical assist.

True to form, she saved him the embarrassment of plainly voicing the request, hooking her arm underneath his. She paused before pulling him up when she saw him grimace.

"Do you want something more for the pain? I can't give you Morphine, but I could give you some Tramadol maybe. It won't make you as sleepy."

"Just help me up," he grunted.

Keller obliged, using every muscle in her slim frame to assist, the scientist scowling the whole way, breathless by the time he'd made it to his feet. She held on to him as he swayed, one hand on his arm and the other flat against his back.

"Take your time," she instructed softly. "Just breathe."

McKay did as he was told, focusing on inhaling and exhaling in reasonable increments. It struck him in passing how patient she was. Even Teyla, a kind and wonderful woman who he cared for deeply, would not have been as placid and indulgent as the doctor was being. He decided then that Keller was prettier under her skin than on top, and he wondered how it was she'd lived twenty-seven years without anyone ever explaining it to her.

Swallowing the urge to do so himself, he stepped slowly toward the cloak interface, Keller keeping hold of him the entire way. The tablet was resting on one of the benches next to it, and before McKay could act on a notion to bend down, the doctor picked it up herself and handed it to him.

"Thanks," he said quietly, avoiding her eyes.

A brief glance at the readings showed their effort with the shield to be a resounding success. The outer hull of the Jumper had incurred minor damage with the first two surges, but it had held up nicely, and the shield had begun to fully absorb the bolts thereafter.

Keller looked at him hopefully.

"Did it work?"

McKay nodded, his enthusiasm barely tempered by his pain.

"Better than I thought," he said excitedly. "The shield is operating at 175 percent capacity."

"And the Jumper? It's okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. It's fine."

The scientist rubbed his forehead roughly.

"We should have more than enough power to reach Donovan on the radio if they're on the surface," he said from behind his hand.

"If they're not?"

McKay lowered his hand and caught her gaze. It was amazing the way you could converse with a person without a single utterance. Keller nodded as calmly as she was able.

Forcing his eyes back to the tablet, the scientist flicked his wrist through a series of prompts, filtering an abundance of the power stored-up in the shield into the signal yield of their wireless radios. His plan had worked precisely as he'd envisioned it, but its ultimate success was out of his hands.

He turned to Keller.

"Okay, I need the…"

The doctor scrambled to grab her radio from the floor before he could finish. It was a crystal clear manifestation of her frazzled nerves, and though McKay thought to say something to calm her, he couldn't think of any words deserving of the cause.

When she handed it to him, he just stared at it at first. It was strange to think that this small, basic device, which he so took for granted, might be their one and only shot at salvation.

He lifted it in front of his mouth, then held down the transmit button.

"This is Ro – "

McKay paused before he could finish his name, drawing a confused look from his companion. He turned to her with a soft, almost blithe smile unbecoming of the moment's gravity, before he spoke again.

"This is Radio Nowhere. Is there anybody alive out there?"


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Hi. Thanks once again to everyone who left a review on the last chapter. It is greatly appreciated and motivating. To those who are following the story, but have yet to offer feedback, I'm always happy to hear criticism, praise, suggestions, or questions. So, I hope you all enjoy this dialogue-heavy chapter (maybe a little _too_ dialogue-heavy in some places), and I'd appreciate your feedback. Thanks!

* * *

It was the most sorrowful silence of her young life. The radio's crackle looped without end, but though she and McKay stood patiently and waited for the payoff of a human voice, no such desistance would come. 

Neither of them wanted to admit it, though. They just stood there quietly, avoiding each other's eyes, long after the time for hope had passed. It reminded McKay of his mother's funeral.

At some point, Keller couldn't take it anymore.

"Maybe they're hurt. And they just can't answer yet," she suggested hollowly.

"They're not hurt. They're dead."

He saw her wince when he said that and he immediately regretted the words, but these were the kind you couldn't take back, so he quickly chose some new ones.

"I'm sorry, Jennifer. I didn't mean to – " He sighed. "They're gone."

Keller knew he was right, but she wasn't ready to concede the point.

"You don't know that for sure."

"The probability of us surviving that landing was… maybe not astronomical, but close. They obviously weren't as lucky. It's not too surprising."

A brief rush of scorn flashed through the doctor's eyes.

"That's it? Not too surprising? Tough luck for them? They were your _colleagues_, Rodney! You _knew_ them!"

"I am _painfully_ aware of that!" McKay spat back. "But it doesn't do either of us any good if I stand here and catalogue all the ways I failed them. _We're_ still alive, and I would very much like to keep it that way."

Keller's face softened with guilt. His tortured expression told her all she needed to know.

"Rodney... I'm – it's not – "

"I owed them more than they got," the scientist interrupted, turning away from her and pretending to examine the readings on the tablet. "But it doesn't matter now."

"It matters to me. I'm sorry I said that; I should have known better."

McKay continued his spurious review of the shield data. When it became clear that he intended to offer no response, she startled him by taking the tablet right out of his hands. He instinctively met her eyes in his surprise, regretting that instantly. She could see through him so easily.

"Rodney."

He looked at her helplessly.

"What do you want me to say, Jennifer?"

"I want you to tell me what you're thinking."

"I don't – do we have to do this now? Because I'm not sure I can."

Keller ducked her head, letting out a long breath. As much as she wanted to address all of this now – their colleagues' deaths, his self-recriminations, her own feeling of woe – he was probably right. It wouldn't matter anyway if they lost sight of surviving themselves.

"All right," she said, taking a seat on the bench. "What do we do now then?"

McKay looked away. He wanted to pace, but he was too conscious of the wound on his stomach.

"I don't know," he admitted. "There's no way this thing is ever getting off the ground."

"We're late. They'll send a search party for us, won't they?"

"Maybe, but there's that minor problem of the _Wraith_ to deal with."

Keller flinched at their enemy's mention, and the melancholy seeping into her eyes wasn't lost on McKay, who felt a pull at his heart seeing it. He was pretty sure he knew the source. After all of her efforts to protect the Pagoans, to synthesize the vaccine and make sure every man, woman, and child received it, the state of their civilization was now very much in question.

McKay looked down on her determinedly.

"It's not your fault, Jennifer. There's nothing you could have done."

Keller met his eyes for a moment, but then looked away again.

"I wish it could be different," he said. "I wish none of this had happened, but it did. And you can't blame yourself for it."

The doctor shook her head, hunching forward, bracing her forearms on her legs. She didn't immediately respond, leaving McKay to stand there awkwardly, not certain what to do with himself. When she finally spoke again, it wasn't what the scientist had thought she might say.

"Did you know any of them well? The crew."

"Um… no, not really."

Keller nodded distantly.

"Lieutenant Cardinal seemed like a very nice man."

"He gave me his biscuit once."

"His biscuit?"

"At lunch. I dropped mine on the way to my table. He was behind me, and he took his and put it on my tray. Said, 'There ya go, Doc,' and kept walking."

McKay paused, his eyes unfocusing as he stared off through the Jumper's hull.

"I don't know anything else about him. But I know he did that, and he didn't have to."

Keller smiled sadly. There was something precious about the anecdote, but that made it all the more doleful. McKay thought her eyes looked wet, but he couldn't be sure. He tried to think of something comforting.

"It's, um… it's all going to be okay," he said, though he himself sounded unconvinced. "Gotta… stay positive, right?"

"'Stay positive?'" she asked, the smallest of smirks forming. "How profoundly un-Rodney of you."

McKay managed a modest smile.

"I guess you just have that effect on me."

He wondered if she knew how pronounced an understatement that was. By the way she looked at him, he thought maybe she did.

It made him uncomfortable when her gaze turned scrutinizing.

"What?"

The doctor surprised him by reaching for his hand, which he gave up to her without resistance. It was a beautiful contrast, her smaller, paler hand grasping his larger one.

"You don't like yourself very much, do you?"

"Of course I do. Have you not met me? My entire life is an exercise in taking credit for things."

Keller smiled at that, but she saw through it too.

"Only because no one_ gives_ you credit the way they should."

"That's not true. Sheppard – well, okay, bad example. Um, uh… Elizabeth used to… compliment me a lot."

She saw the flash of pain in his eyes when he uttered the name of his perished friend.

"It's not _your_ fault, you know."

"What's not?"

"This. Cardinal. Or Elizabeth or Carson. None of it. I know you think it is."

McKay turned his eyes down.

"No, I don't."

"There was nothing you could have done."

"I know that."

"You can't foresee every outcome. It's not realistic."

McKay felt something resembling a shudder. Keller could feel the mild tremor in his hand, and then a moment later, he was trying to pry it from her grasp. Sensing she'd gain no ground by refusing, she let him pull back, content for the moment to allow him an escape.

"I'm… I need to…" He gestured toward the tablet, which she handed to him in short order. "Thanks."

Keller sighed and leaned back as he sorted through data. She let him do so in silence for a brief time, but she couldn't handle the quiet for long.

"Any epiphanies?"

"No. None."

"Would it help if I made more references to the Founding Fathers?"

"Not unless John Hancock was an Ancient."

"Well, he _was_ a Free Mason, so who knows."

McKay brought a hand up to his face, pressing the heel of his palm into his eyes. He couldn't remember ever feeling this tired. It was as if weeks or months, years maybe, had passed since last he slumbered, but in reality, it couldn't have been more than 28 hours or so. The throbbing in his head, still present, had become a part of him, barely noticed now.

"Our options are slim and none," he said wearily. "I'm now one hundred percent certain the computer's been mangled beyond repair. I don't have access to _anything_ accept the shield."

"But what about the radio?"

"Like I said before, sending a message on the surface was one thing. Getting one through the atmosphere is quite another. It's just not possible."

"There has to be something else we can do."

"I am _listening_ if you've got a suggestion," he offered in frustration. "But I've applied my intellect in full to this problem and I've got _nothing_."

"Well… maybe we won't have to do anything. I mean, once they open the gate and find out the Wraith are there, won't they send Daedalus?"

McKay half-shrugged.

"Maybe, but I don't know how much good it's going to do. With the Asgard technology in place, they wouldn't face the catastrophic system disruption that we did, but even if they got close enough to do a full scan of the planet, they'd never be able to isolate us from the huge mass of energy readings."

Keller closed her eyes, feeling the burden of their apparently impending demise settling on her shoulders. She'd been afraid during the entire ordeal, but this was the first time she'd entertained the notion that McKay might not present a viable solution. Fair or not, some part of her had assumed that he would fix things, like he always did.

His voice, quiet and tentative, floated to her ears.

"Jennifer?"

Keller bit the inside of her cheek.

"I don't want to die down here, Rodney," she whispered.

McKay's heart sank. She was terrified. He was scared himself, but not like her; her fear was a different beast altogether. It was a terror that the scientist had felt routinely when he'd first arrived in Pegasus. With the barest of weapons training and absolutely no field experience, he'd been sent out to confront a dangerous universe, and it had nearly broken him. But now, years later, having fired thousands of bullets, having killed and nearly been killed, he'd come to terms with his own mortality. Keller was only beginning to face hers.

Ignoring the pain in his stomach, he sat down beside her, and in a reversal of their earlier actions, it was McKay this time who grasped Keller's hand. It was enough to draw her eyes to his.

"You are _not_ going to die down here," he declared earnestly. "Okay? You won't."

"You don't know that, Rodney."

"Yes, I do."

"I'm not sure that's your promise to make."

Her tone betrayed her intense skepticism, but McKay was undeterred, looking back at her with as much clarity and conviction as she'd ever seen in him.

"I won't let it happen, Jen. Not to you."

Maybe it was the certainty with which he spoke, or maybe she just wanted so badly for it to be true, but Keller believed him. He wouldn't allow her fears their proper vindication. Others might not have thought McKay capable of bringing peace to a person's heart, but in need's frail hours, human beings will always surprise you.

She nodded her head in acceptance, in thanks. McKay smiled awkwardly, then self-consciously released her hand.

"Okay, um… I'll just… see what I can come up with here."

He grabbed the tablet and moved to stand again, but a sharp pain around his mid-section made him think better of it. He'd hoped to put some distance between he and the doctor after his burst of intimate sincerity, but he settled for avoiding eye contact, leaning back and staring down at the shield data.

Now that he'd – in concrete, unmistakable terms – assured her that he'd find a way out of this mess, it was incumbent upon him to actually deliver. And somehow this felt more important than similar promises to Sheppard or Sam.

"Rodney?"

He forced himself to look at her, regardless of their close proximity.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Uh, yeah… sure."

Keller fidgeted nervously.

"After that whole thing on the mining planet… when we had that drink… um... what did you think that was?"

"Wh – what do you mean?"

Keller sighed.

"Like… did you think that was a casual 'you saved my life' thing or – "

McKay grinned in self-congratulation.

"Well, I _did_ save your life."

"Are you going to let me finish?"

"Sorry."

" – or did you think it was something else."

"Um… I'm not really good with vague verbal suggestions, so…"

Keller snorted in frustration, her next words delivered slowly, so as to leave no room for further equivocation.

"Did you think it was a date?"

McKay froze.

"Oh."

He sought after that flustered, pathetic utterance to choose his words carefully, feeling his heart quicken its beats a fraction. Why was she asking this? And what answer was she hoping to hear? He'd only briefly entertained the notion that the attraction and the feelings accompanying them were mutual. It had seemed a fool's hope.

"Well, I… I guess I didn't really stop and… think about it."

"Not even afterward?"

"Why are you asking?"

She looked down shyly.

"I guess I was kind of hoping it was," she conceded. "But when we've gotten together since then, you haven't really… made a move or anything."

"To be fair, I don't_ have_ any moves."

Keller couldn't help but smile at that, feeling laughter bubbling up in her chest. She looked up at him affectionately.

"Don't ever change, Rodney. It would be terrible if you did."

McKay opened and closed his mouth, flummoxed by the unexpected compliment. He recovered enough, though, to deliver a half-hearted quip.

"Don't let anyone else hear you say that. It's not a popular opinion."

"Well, it should be."

What a wonderful thing to say, he thought. No one else had ever spoken anything of the sort to him. He wondered if he'd be a different person if they had. Still, part of him wished she'd stop remarking like that. She had no idea what a minefield she was walking into.

"Jen…"

"Yeah?"

"I'm… not good at things like this…"

"I know."

"No, no… what I mean is…um… things like… _this_. They don't… well, you know what happened with Katie."

"She wasn't right for you anyway, Rodney."

He frowned.

"Wha'do you mean?"

"You remember how you said she would organize your stuff without asking?"

"That _did_ annoy me."

"And how she'd look hurt every time you tried to banter?"

"Well, she was just… nice. Wanted me to be nice too."

Keller looked at him intently.

"You _are _nice. That doesn't mean everything that comes out of your mouth has to be chosen and vetted."

McKay ducked his head.

"Look, I appreciate what you're trying to say, but if I managed to screw it up with Katie, I can screw it up with _anybody_. It's what I do. I'm a relationship albatross."

"That's not true, Rodney. You were just a little overwhelmed with Katie. She put too much on your shoulders."

McKay opened his mouth to respond, but before the words could spill off his tongue, his face froze as if in stasis, his eyes enlarging. Keller recognized it for what it was this time. The scientist was at the precipice of his third revelation.

"That's it," he said quietly, more to himself than to her.

"What's it?"

"Daedalus' sensors wouldn't be able to isolate us because the energy reading's not strong enough, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, all we have to do is create a massive build-up to differentiate the Jumper from all the other readings."

"I don't like the word 'massive' in that context."

McKay shook his head.

"No, no, no, it's fine. Look, we just tweak the shield frequency again to attract even more of this scattered electricity. The more we have pouring into the shield, the greater our energy signature, and the easier it'll be for Daedalus to find us."

Keller regarded the scientist uneasily.

"If they're even up there looking. Do they have any reason to assume we're on _this_ planet and not the other one?"

McKay tried to appear confident, but it was a miserable failure.

"Well… by… process of elimination."

"And the shield, can it even handle the kind of energy surge you're talking about?"

"Theoretically."

"Oh, _that's_ comforting."

"You know, you're really turning into a _downer_ here, Jennifer!" McKay bristled. "You have any of your _own_ deus ex machina solutions lying around?"

Keller rolled her eyes.

"I didn't think so."

The doctor sighed. He had a point. McKay had made it abundantly clear that, given their scarce time and resources, there wasn't much he could do. Still, she thought this sounded more reckless than he was letting on.

With a small shake of her head, she finally acquiesced.

"All right… fine."

McKay smiled victoriously, turning his attention immediately to the tablet to enact his plan. In the back of his mind, he wondered if she realized that his idea had been sparked once more by one of her passing comments. She was fast becoming his scientific muse, and he wished he liked that fact less. He'd meant what he said before – he was incapable of making another person happy; he had a hard enough time making _himself _happy.

But when the scientist felt – with some surprise – Keller's head come to rest against his shoulder, and he saw her close her eyes as if this were the most natural thing in the world, he couldn't help but think that the opportunity to try was worth more than every iota of all the things he was.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Greetings. Thanks very much, once again, to all who have read and reviewed, especially those who have been so thorough and encouraging. It's much appreciated. As always, I invite those who have been reading, but have yet to comment, to offer complaints, praise, suggestions, questions, etc.

All right then. I hope you enjoy this chapter; let me know. Thanks!

* * *

It was almost unfathomable what she'd confessed. Granted, he'd had enough romantic entanglements through the years so as not to be embarrassed, but she was – or at least should have been – a woman far beyond his grasp. It wasn't just how beautiful she was, though that alone made her interest in him confounding, but it was the way she gave of herself freely and generously, the way her laugh lived up to the hype of her smile, and the way she made him feel like he was a better person than he knew he was. She deserved more than him. He'd have to explain that to her.

McKay shook off the musing distastefully. He was like a teenager thinking about a girl during a test. Had he become so desensitized to life-threatening situations that his mind could wander this easily? They could _die_ down here, he reminded himself, in a matter of hours. And he'd promised her otherwise.

Keller watched him, his emotions transparent to her. There was something amazing, though, about the sheer complexity of his various expressions. There was the self-recrimination and doubt, exhibited in the way his eyes moved frantically; there was the pain flashing through his head, visible in his forehead's crinkles; and there was the deep analytical concentration, seen in the furrow of his brows. No one could say Rodney McKay didn't know how to multi-task.

"It would never work, you know," he blurted out.

Keller regarded him evenly, patiently waiting for him to elaborate.

"I'm not easy to be around."

She nearly laughed.

"Is that really the best you could come up with?"

He paused his work, finally looking at her.

"You're gonna have to do better than that, Rodney."

"What?"

"'I'm not easy to be around?' Not only is that untrue, but it's also pretty lazy. You could at least put some thought into it."

"I did!" McKay insisted. "That took me ten minutes to come up with."

Keller smiled, showing teeth.

"I'm sure."

McKay's thoughts scattered as he looked at her, transfixed by her buoyant display. This wasn't going like he'd hoped it would. She could get under his skin at will; all it took was a single word or a moment's glance. The woman was quicksand.

She seemed to know it too. While she'd been tentative in first broaching this topic, his flustered responses were making her more and more comfortable.

"_Look_, Jennifer," he muttered irritably, glancing away lest his gumption evaporate, "I am endeavoring to be diplomatic about this, but you're going to have to stop smiling at me or I'll never get my point across!"

At that, her face sobered a bit, but it was with incredible difficulty.

"There's a lot of reasons, and I figured most of them would be uncomfortably obvious, but if you really want me to list them, then I will. Let's see here, uh… how about I'm half self-loathing, half egomaniac…"

"Then they cancel each other out."

"I'm a workaholic…"

"What, and I'm golfing with Sheppard?"

"Sometimes I pretend Radek's ideas are mine…"

"As any good leader would."

"I steal Ronon's power bars and I say John did it..."

"Truly cunning."

"I'm told I'm only 'okay' in bed…"

"I tell _every _guy that."

"When I try to compliment women, it ends up sounding demeaning…"

"I'm not choosy."

"And when I'm having bad dreams, I mumble in my sleep."

"You won't have any when I'm around."

That stopped him cold. He hadn't looked at her once during his whimsical confession, but he had to now. And as soon as his eyes found hers, those warm and patient and gorgeous optics, his mind went blank, save one basic urge which he was hopeless to act against.

Keller let out a surprised exclamation as McKay leaned in abruptly and pressed his lips against hers, bracing one hand on her leg to keep his balance. Her shock only lasted an instant before she vigorously responded, one hand drifting down to grasp his forearm.

There was nothing tentative about the kiss. It contained all of his desperation, and some of hers too. But while it should have felt sudden, maybe uncomfortable given their awkward positioning, it felt more like a revelation, like a divine reward reaped for good deeds done.

Too soon for McKay, she finally pulled back, a small smile of satisfaction on her face. For his part, the scientist looked confused, like he wasn't quite sure that had just transpired.

"I… um… I couldn't help myself."

"I'm not complaining."

"I shouldn't have done that."

"We're not back to _this_ again, are we?"

McKay looked at her for an infuriatingly long, indecisive moment.

She didn't get an answer either, for just before the words came to be, the sounds of the storm outside were joined by a new, foreboding noise – creaking metal or some such – and the Jumper tipped ever so slightly, not enough to displace either of them from their seats, but enough that McKay's face was transformed by fear.

"What was that?" Keller asked.

"I don't know," he replied, straining his ears. "But I don't think it's good."

"Did we just move?"

"This planet's all canyons. Looks like we aren't on stable ground."

Keller blanched.

"You mean, we could be on the edge of a cliff right now?"

"It's a distinct possibility," McKay said, grabbing the tablet again, working with infinitely more fervor than before. "I don't wanna stick around to find out. I'm going to have to adjust my calculations of the shield frequency a bit."

"What? Why?"

"The lower I drop the frequency, the quicker we get the energy. I wanted to do it gradually, but something tells me we don't have that luxury."

"Rodney, that doesn't sound like a good – " The Jumper tilted again, more severely than before, the creaking louder and arguter, and Keller had to grab on to the seat to keep from tumbling off. "On second thought, I'm sure you know what you're doing."

McKay grunted, as if stunned that that was ever in doubt.

He continued working, and though each creak of the Jumper felt like it was happening inside his skull, the sound and the pain barely registered, forced away for future consideration.

In a matter of two or three minutes, Keller gripping the bottom of her seat fiercely beside him, McKay had made the proper modifications, and almost immediately, the crackle of the shield grew notably louder as it imbibed new energy from above.

Keller looked at him hopefully.

"Is it working?"

"Yeah."

"Well… what do we do now then?" she asked, flinching as the Jumper creaked again.

"Nothing."

"_Nothing_?"

"Our part's over," he said, keeping a watchful eye on the shield readings, which looked stable for the moment. "If my calculations were correct, we should hit the necessary threshold for differentiation within the next thirty seconds or a minute. It's up to them to find us after that."

She nodded, closing her eyes, listening to the mishmash sonance above them.

"Do you think the Pagoans are all right?"

"They're pretty low on my list of – " He stopped himself mid-sentence. "I'm… yeah, I'm sure they're fine. They're… an intrepid bunch… very resourceful."

Keller opened her eyes, smiling gratefully, and as the Jumper groaned once more, the worst it had yet, she reached for his hand out of instinct. He accepted it without delay, lacing his fingers with hers.

The Jumper shook then, like it was tottering on the edge of something, the danger feeling imminent now.

"Uh-oh," he mumbled.

"Uh-oh? What? No, no, not uh-oh…"

McKay relinquished her hand, reaching behind her to pull the safety harness down over her head and across her chest.

"Snap that in," he demanded, pulling his own harness over his head now.

Keller complied, locking hers in place, turning to him with panicked eyes as she watched him do the same. The Jumper stopped tottering, seeming instead to turn toward one side now.

"Rodney?"

"This may get a little unpleasant," he said bravely. "Just hold on."

She reached for his hand again, and once more he took it, his grip just as tight as hers this time, betraying the disquietude he'd managed to keep from his voice.

Their eyes met as the Jumper pitched violently sideways, the harnesses keeping them pinned to their seats.

For a moment, it seemed as if the ship had caught itself on something and might remain in that position, but in truth their ride was in its infant stage.

"Rodney," her voice trembled.

It was the last word spoken before the Jumper's free-fall began.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Hi there. Many, many thanks for the kind and encouraging reviews. So... Chapter 8 here... I have a good bit of uncertainty about it. I wanted to take this in a perhaps unexpected, "twisty" direction that I thought might be more satisfying than the direction the standard formula would dictate I go here. I do hope that proves to be a good decision on my part and translates to you enjoying this installment. Anyway, leave me a review and let me know. Thanks!

* * *

With the inertial dampeners knocked out, they could feel their guts twisting as the Jumper plummeted. It was something cruder than a rollercoaster and more terrifying than a gunshot, burrowing down into their intestines, then their blood, then their cells, until it had bonded with all the nuclei.

Keller's screams reverberated in his ears until he was sure they'd perforated the eardrums. The knuckles on her hand, which gripped his painfully, had all turned white. He sought out her eyes, but they were squeezed shut, the muscles in her face quaking.

They must have fallen miles, down and down and down, before they finally struck solid ground, bouncing off of it and capsizing, so that their fall continued inverted now, the blood rushing down their extremities into their heads.

McKay glanced at Keller again, but this time her eyes were closed peacefully, her body limp, and he only then noticed that her hand was slack in his. The pull of the darkness grew exponentially stronger at the sight, the force of the fall numbing all rational thought, gravity tugging on him like it would cleave his limbs from his body.

And then in a moment in that neutral space between bliss and horror, blackness washed over him at last.

* * *

"Rodney."

That voice again. The same as before.

"Rodney."

He knew he should recognize the tone, that it meant more to him than he'd ever known. It had pulled him out of this place before, given his identity back to him, and it was rather insistent about reprising that feat now.

"Come on, Rodney," the voice sighed sweetly, playfully. "You don't have any excuse this time. It's almost noon. We slept all morning."

It sounded closer now, like he and it were occupying the same space, and then in a flash, he was swept out of slumber's chasm, his eyes slowly opening, looking up into the bright, gentle optics of Jennifer Keller.

Why was she there?

"About time," she murmured in mock-annoyance. "I'm going to have to start setting the alarm. You've been like a hibernating bear all week."

He blinked at her dumbly, noting how her hair was unkempt, like it had just spent a whole night on top of a pillow, and she wasn't wearing her Atlantis attire or even her civilian clothes, adorned rather in what he recognized unmistakably as sleepwear.

"What?" he mumbled.

Keller frowned.

"Are you all right? You have a bad dream or something?"

McKay sat up, glancing confusedly at his surroundings. He was in a bedroom, but not crew quarters. The design and decorations and such were decidedly of Earth origin, and plainly feminine. He'd never seen any of this before.

He met Keller's eyes again, his full of bewilderment and apprehension, hers of concern.

"What are you… where are we?"

She smiled gently, her worry swelling.

"Same place we've been since Monday. What's the matter?"

McKay caught a glimpse of a photograph hanging on the near wall; it was a shot of Keller and an older man, her father maybe, standing on a walkway at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. When he looked back at her, it was clear that her concern was steadily rising.

"This is _your_ place," he said, sounding disoriented and afraid. "What are we doing here? What am _I_ doing here?"

"We're on leave, remember?" she replied, pressing a hand to his forehead, but finding it wasn't especially warm. "You don't feel like you have a fever. Does your head hurt?"

He just stared back at her, too overwhelmed and flummoxed to reply.

"I was afraid you weren't out of the woods yet."

"What are – what are you talking about?"

"Your concussion. It can do strange things to your brain, make you feel disoriented, even cause brief flashes of memory loss."

"Yes, yes, I have a concussion!" McKay replied intently, latching on to the one thing that still made sense to him. "I have a concussion and we're… we're on PYL-441. We're not here. I'm not here right now."

Keller sighed sympathetically, running a hand through his hair until she'd reached the back of his head, then scratching his scalp intimately.

"Rodney, that was almost a month ago."

He knit his brows in confusion, shaking his head violently.

"No! No. We're – we were… falling. The ground gave out beneath us. We – "

" – were beamed out by the Daedalus. Your plan _worked_, Rodney. Don't you remember?"

McKay looked away, his body still tense as he processed what she was telling him. He knew better than anyone that concussions could linger, and that they were capable of this kind of memory loss. But the notion that he'd been walking around for a month with no ability to recall that period was difficult to accept.

"It worked?" he asked quietly.

"_Yes_. You saved my life… just like you said you would."

The scientist took a deep breath in, then let it out, only now noticing the slight tremor in his hand, which grasped the sheet covering his legs. As the reality of what she was telling him began to sink in, it struck him for the first time where he _physically_ was. He was lying in her bed back home on Earth, clad in no more than a t-shirt and boxers, and the two of them had obviously slept by side that previous evening and on the days that preceded it.

McKay looked at her timidly.

"A month, you said?"

She nodded with a soft smile.

"Um… and we – we've obviously – something has… uh… changed then… with – between – "

"This is almost as good as the first time," she interrupted affectionately, her smile growing.

McKay sighed self-deprecatingly, doing everything he could to avoid looking at her. He wasn't smooth or articulate in these matters on the best of days, but here and now, overwhelmed by the surreality of having lost an entire month's worth of memories and waking up in a different galaxy, he was reduced to a pathetic exaggeration of the awkward talker he was by default.

"I… guess I didn't talk you out of it then… did I?"

Keller shook her head happily in the negative.

"No, but it was mildly cute that you thought you _could_."

McKay graced her with a small smile for that. He was pretty sure he should have felt belittled or insulted, but more than anything, he was glad that she held his advice in such low esteem.

His mind was buzzing with myriad questions, but most of them would be too awkward to voice. They'd obviously taken their leave together, and they were sleeping beside one another at night, but how chaste or unchaste was the relationship at present? He wished he could ask, but contrary to prevailing opinion, he wasn't quite so bankrupt of tact.

Keller seemed to sense his mind's grinding gears.

"Why don't you take a shower? Then we can go by the hospital."

McKay glowered.

"What? Hospital?"

"Call me an old romantic, but when her boyfriend wakes up without a month's worth of memories, a girl tends to worry about it," the doctor replied firmly.

He noted in passing her description of their relationship as he capitulated with a resigned nod. Smiling victoriously, she slid off of the bed and padded across the wooden floor to the door, turning back briefly.

"I'll be right downstairs, okay?"

McKay nodded, then watched her disappear into the hallway.

He looked down to find his hand still shaking, not as much as before, but enough that he began to flex it self-consciously. A month, his mind repeated. An entire month.

Reaching a hand up to his head, he found that the butterfly bandages and the stitches that he presumed had eventually taken their place were gone, leaving behind dry, slightly raised scabs. He lifted up his shirt and found similarly that his stomach wound was half-healed.

After a minute or so, he ventured to swing his legs over the side of the bed, letting his socked feet fall to the floor. When he caught sight of the photograph of Keller and her father again, he couldn't help the feeling of disbelief that once more surged through him. One moment, he was plummeting to his certain demise, and the next, he was in her home, undead and unharmed.

The scientist stood up slowly, careful to avoid dizzying himself. He was walking toward the door, intending to find the bathroom so he could shower, when he stopped beside her dresser and looked down at another framed photograph. This one was of Keller and what looked to be a small African child. He appeared malnourished, but was smiling nonetheless. It was from one of her medical school relief projects probably; she'd told him of how incredibly rewarding they'd proved.

He couldn't help but wonder, spurred by the thought of her helping the needy in mass, what had become of the Pagoans. He'd find out eventually. There was no need to ask _her_,when she'd probably spent this entire month coming to terms with their likely culling.

McKay managed to find the bathroom in short order after that, stripping down and throwing a towel over the edge of the shower stall, then turning on the water and stepping into its stream.

As he began to scrub himself clean, his mind still mulling over all that he'd missed, an eerie sensation spread through his stomach as he listened to the hiss of the running water. It reminded him of the dim hum of the emergency lanterns that he'd come to know so well during their trying episode. The feeling lingered and disturbed him, but he resuscitated his previous mantra: be a man, be a man, be a man.

He finished showering in record time.

When he got out, towel wrapped around him at the waist, he only now wondered what it was he was going to put on. Returning to the bedroom, he found his old, battered suitcase lying half-open by the window.

He dug out a collared shirt and a pair of jeans, pausing briefly as what once had been a light and unnoticed drizzle transitioned nearly instantaneously into a violent downpour outside. Did it really rain like this in Wisconsin?

Minutes later, showered, shaven, and dressed, he made his way down the stairs at the end of the hall and found Keller sitting at the kitchen table, reading a local newspaper.

"Hey," she smiled, looking up. "Feeling any better?"

He nodded, then lied.

"Yeah. It was a… good shower."

"A had-to-be-there kind of shower?"

"It's been a month and you're _still_ making fun of me for that?"

She fought back a follow-up quip, taking pity on him. Then she set the newspaper down and stood up, sauntering over to him innocently, leaning in slowly and placing a soft kiss of apology on his lips. His discontented expression vanished. He wished she didn't look so satisfied about it.

"Come on," she said coaxingly, walking past him out of the kitchen toward the front door, where she grabbed her coat off of a hook. "We can get lunch while we're out too."

"It's pouring down rain," McKay complained, though he slipped his jacket on when she handed it to him. "My head will still be scrambled in an hour, won't it?"

Keller rolled her eyes.

"It's going to be raining all day, Rodney. There's a storm front moving over. And anyway, I'll feel a lot better when we can be sure this memory loss isn't a serious complication with your concussion."

He sighed.

"All right, all right. Let's get this over with."

Keller unbuttoned her umbrella and readied it as he opened the door for her.

The first thing he noticed when they stepped outside was how strangely dark the sky was, even considering it was filled with storm clouds. It looked more like night than day, but though he thought to mention it, Keller didn't appear to be fazed by it, so he kept quiet on the subject. Maybe he just hadn't been on Earth in a while.

It was a weird feeling being in a car again too. The dashboard looked rudimentary and alien to him. He slunk down in his seat and stared out the window uncomfortably as Keller drove, flinching at one point when he heard the distant rumble of thunder. Somehow it troubled him that she didn't have the same reaction.

By the time they got to the middle of town, the sound was louder and accompanied by bright flashes of lightning above. He was so focused on the path of every bolt, hands fidgeting in his lap, that he barely noticed when she pulled the car onto the shoulder and parallel-parked. Something just seemed so wrong.

"Rodney?"

"Hmm?"

"I have to run into the bank real quick," she said, pausing to give him a scrutinizing once-over. "You gonna be okay for a minute?"

McKay glanced at her distractedly, thinking that the gentlemanly thing to do would be to go in himself and let her stay dry in the car, but for some reason, he just nodded, then looked back out the window. Keller watched him a moment further, then opened her door and dashed out into the rain, crossing the street and entering a modest building on the other side.

He wracked his brain while she was gone trying to come up with one minute, one second of the time he was missing. There was just nothing there, though. It was as if someone had reached inside his mind and ripped out everything he was looking for.

The scientist closed his eyes with a soft sigh, laying his head back against the headrest. As he heard the crack of thunder once more, saw the next flash of lightning even with his eyes closed, he began to hear that godforsaken song running through his head again, the only line he could remember looping over and over and over.

"This is Radio Nowhere. Is there anybody alive out there?"

He could feel that terrible something in his torso again, that _thing_ screaming to him that something wasn't right, that none of this was right. He tried to calm himself, to explain logically what he was feeling. This was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, he told himself, triggered by reminders of what he'd been through. It wasn't anything more.

All his paranoid thoughts about lost time and the sky not looking right and the lightning up above were just a neurological reaction to the trauma he'd suffered. He was safe, back on Earth, and everything would be fine in just a few moments when the doctor walked out of that bank.

Keller emerged from the building a minute later and McKay felt a wave of relief wash over him as he watched her jog off of the curb out into the street.

She was about halfway across when she was laid out in the blinding rain by an oncoming truck, which barely managed to avoid compounding the impact by running her over.

"_Jennifer_!"

McKay threw open his door, sprinting awkwardly across the distance separating him from her, as the driver of the truck climbed out too, already on his cell phone screaming to an emergency operator.

A few small bands of pedestrians gathered at the edges of the sidewalk, many of them calling for help as well.

The scientist didn't see any of them, though. All he saw was Keller's fragile body, twisted into something unintended by God, blood beginning to pool beneath her head.

He dropped down to his knees beside her, touching her face with a soaked, jittering hand before gathering himself enough to check for a pulse. Her heart was silent beneath his fingers.

"No, no, no," he mumbled. "Come on, Jen…"

He tried to remember his basic first aid training, the proper technique for CPR, but that memory was as lost to him as the previous month, leaving him with nothing to do but linger over her and shout out at the top of his lungs to anyone in the universe who might hear him.

"Help! _Help_! _Somebody help me_! _Help!_"

He just kept yelling.

* * *

John Sheppard sat watching the steady rise and fall of his friend's chest. To the casual onlooker, the man would have appeared to be sleeping peacefully. He, unfortunately, knew better.

The first two days were the worst. Keller wouldn't let him into the infirmary for more than an hour at a time. He'd had some choice words for her on that point, but she hadn't wavered, and he'd finally given up.

Since then, though, she'd deemed the scientist "stable." He was, after all, breathing without the aid of machines, which she'd insisted was a promising sign. She'd refused to utter the word "coma," describing his condition instead as a deep sleep precipitated by extreme exhaustion and physiological and neurological trauma. He wasn't sure what the difference was, but he was quite certain that _she_ knew.

He, Ronon, and Teyla had been sitting with McKay in shifts. Zelenka and Lorne and Chuck had been by also to offer a few words of support. Keller was there just about every solitary second she wasn't sleeping, fretting over him at some moments like a doctor does a patient, and at others like a woman does a man.

Sheppard glanced up with tired eyes when he caught a glimpse of Colonel Carter crossing the infirmary in his direction.

He leaned back in his chair and conjured up a small smile in greeting.

"Hey," she offered soberly as she came to stand beside McKay's bed. "Any change?"

"Ronon heard him mumbling a few hours ago, but he's been quiet since I've been here."

Carter nodded.

"That's probably a good sign, though. His mind's still active."

"You could smash his brain with a sledgehammer and it would still be active."

The woman smiled at that, letting out a breath that bordered on a modest laugh. Sheppard narrowed his eyes curiously.

"Where's Keller, by the way? I didn't think anything could drag her out of here."

"She's sleeping," Carter replied, her small smile turning sheepish when Sheppard's stare lingered. "I had to make it an order. She was… less than enthusiastic about that."

He nodded silently, turning his eyes back to McKay. It wasn't clear what – if anything – there was between the scientist and the doctor, but he could safely say that he'd never witnessed such fierce loyalty in a human being as he had in her. From the moment she'd been treated on the Daedalus for her own wounds, she'd been hovering over him attending to his. Maybe it was just the intensity of the ordeal they'd shared together on that planet. But he doubted it.

"Have you contacted the families of… ?"

Sheppard shook his head guiltily.

"No. Not yet. Every time I try to write something, it's just not there."

Carter didn't reply, content for now with his explanation. She understood what it was like to write those kind of letters. Every stroke of the pen or keyboard stole something from down in your soul. She waited a bit, looking down at McKay's prone body, then turned to leave.

Sheppard's voice stopped her.

"He's gonna think all of it's his fault, you know."

"There was nothing he could have done," she said. "It's a miracle he and Dr. Keller are still alive."

"Yeah, well, McKay's not really a 'details' guy when it comes to praise and blame."

Carter smiled, supposing he was right. The scientist felt every triumph and failure as if the entire universe were in the balance. If and when he woke, getting through to him might prove difficult.

With a final nod, the woman turned and left, leaving Sheppard alone once more with his friend.

He tried for a while to catch up on paperwork, and then tried once more to write a letter to the wife of Captain Donovan, but eventually his eyes became too heavy for such tasks and he settled back into his chair, propping his feet up on McKay's bed and promptly falling asleep.

It went unnoticed when, sometime in the middle of the night, Keller returned with quiet footsteps to the infirmary. She reclaimed her chair on the side of the bed opposite Sheppard. Taking McKay's hand into hers, as naturally as she breathed, the doctor watched his eyes move beneath his lids, and somehow she just knew that he was caught in the pull of some craven, wicked dream.

* * *

A/N: So... did that all come together there? Or did this amount to nothing more than an interesting miscalculation? Hit that 'Review' button and give me the verdict.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: As always, many, many, many thanks for all of the encouraging words. I'm glad the unexpected development was so well-received. I hope you enjoy this latest installment, as we continue in that same vain. As always, criticism, praise, questions, and suggestions are welcome, and I appreciate those who take the time to hit that review button and leave me some feedback. Thanks, and here we go...

* * *

His hands and shirt and a few spots in his hair were stained red, as if he were the recipient of a bloody baptism, and in consort with his frantic pacing and worried scowl, it made McKay look crazed or dangerous to everyone in the waiting room. A young family sat as far from him as they could, an old couple angled their bodies in the other direction, and the nurse at the admissions desk politely avoided eye contact.

The scientist moved about in a daze. The disturbing contortion of Keller's slim, perfect, familiar body was seared into his mind's eye. It hadn't seemed real when he held her limp form in his arms, or when the paramedics had pried her from his grasp. He'd been in some kind of trance in the back of the ambulance, whispering kind words to one who couldn't hear, one who the technicians seemed silently to believe was dead.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been at the hospital; truly, he'd no concept. His mind was caught in a feedback loop, never progressing past a core group of images or notions. She'd looked so delicate lying there. If they saved her, what cost would it be she paid? Broken bones, a skull fracture, brain damage, paralysis? He'd see her through each and every one. They'd make do together. But first he needed her to cling so stubbornly to life.

His eyes, out of focus and glazed, caught sight peripherally of a blurred green blob marching slowly down the corridor toward the waiting room.

And he knew. Somehow he just knew, and he was rushing forward to meet the man.

"Where is she?" McKay demanded, glancing over the middle-aged doctor's shoulder.

The physician, a dark-skinned Briton with tired, beady eyes, spoke in a calm, practiced voice.

"Sir, why don't we sit down?" he asked, lightly grasping the Canadian's elbow.

McKay violently shook his hand off, sidestepping him and making his way down the corridor. The doctor matched his stride.

"Sir, you can't go back there…"

"_Where is she?!_"

The physician stopped, letting out a sigh, and then he delivered the news abruptly as McKay kept walking.

"Sir, your wife... she's dead."

That, at last, stilled the determined man's steps. He froze. Stood there. What nonsense was this healer spewing?

The doctor crossed the divide between them, coming around to McKay's other side so that they were face to face again. He synthesized as best he was able a proper look of sympathy.

"We… did everything we could. But she was too far gone when she got here."

McKay said nothing, not even making eye contact, staring down the long hallway.

"I'm very sorry. But sometimes it's just one's time."

That finally got the scientist's attention. 'Sometimes it's just one's time.' What did that mean? What the _hell_ did that mean? The man who had just miserably failed his Jennifer saw fit to moments later place her death into some greater cosmic context that he knew absolutely _nothing_ about.

"Don't you dare," McKay growled. "Don't you dare, you son of a bitch. You could have saved her. You could have _saved her_ if you weren't the most incompetent doctor in the history of medicine. You had her life in your hands and you _blew it_. You _blew it_! So don't you dare presume to babble this nonsense about the _circle of life_ to me, you monumental _imbecile_!"

The physician regarded him passively.

McKay, for his part, looked bankrupt of fight after that, the diatribe draining the marrow from his bones. His shoulders sagged down and he looked away, sucking in a shaky breath. He needed to be angry. He needed to keep yelling or he might crumble into dust. It just wouldn't come, though. Nothing would come, except the nausea in his stomach.

"Is there anyone we can call for you?" the doctor asked quietly.

McKay's face was all crevices and lines.

"No," he said. "There's no one."

* * *

It had taken Sheppard several hours to clean out the quarters of Captain Donovan, Lieutenant Cardinal, Lieutenant Mince, and Sergeant Perry. Lorne had attended to the belongings of the other three fallen military personnel, and Zelenka had seen to the effects of Doctor Talvere.

Sheppard hadn't known any of the expired particularly well, though he'd been impressed enough with Cardinal's work to give him his own command much earlier than was the standard practice. Of course, given the man's lack of seniority, his team had been a proving ground for recent arrivals and a place of exile for young officers who'd erred. But Cardinal had handled himself extremely well during his generally uneventful three-month tenure leading SGA-15. He'd even managed to tame Perry, a notoriously brash young marine.

Donovan had always seemed capable as well, though Sheppard had scarcely ever conversed with the man. The more he thought about each individual he lost, the more he realized how little he know about the majority of the men under his command. Part of him couldn't help but be glad that was the case, though. It was a lot harder clearing out the quarters of friends than it was the quarters of colleagues.

After a quick mid-afternoon meal, eaten alone, Sheppard returned to the infirmary, where he found Keller checking the monitors next to McKay's bed, as she was prone to do several times an hour.

She glanced at him with an embarrassed smile, like she'd been caught, when he came up beside her.

"You know, I'm pretty sure those things beep if there's a problem, Doc."

"I'm a very thorough person."

"I'm getting that, yeah."

Keller reclaimed her seat next to the bed, her eyes falling back on McKay, squinting a bit as she looked over his face.

"He's been frowning for a while now."

Sheppard walked around to the other side of the bed, glancing down at his friend's visage, but finding nothing of note.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I think that may just be his natural expression."

"No, I can tell. His mouth's turned down at the corners, see?"

The soldier looked a moment longer, still not seeing what she saw, but he nodded anyway.

"Oh, yeah… how 'bout that."

When he heard Keller let out a pensive breath, his gaze drifted from McKay to her. She didn't look quite as tired as she had when last he saw her, but her eyebrows were still perpetually arced inward, forming a temporary fold in the middle of her forehead that was liable to become a permanent fixture if she kept on this way.

There was obviously something deeper here than friendship and flirtation. And that was more than a little surprising, if he was honest. McKay was without doubt the best friend he'd ever had, so he knew very well that behind the bluster, the scientist was a good and decent person, but to put it bluntly, Keller was miles out of his league.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

She looked up at him warily, seeming to sense where he was going, but nodded.

"Are you and Rodney… well… you know…?"

Keller glanced back at McKay, measuring her response. She didn't have any desire to broach this subject presently, but Sheppard was clearly only looking for confirmation of something he already knew. There wasn't much use in denying it.

"I think so."

"You _think_ so."

Keller's lips curved up in a faint smile.

"Well, I mean… it's Rodney. He's a lot of things, but decisive isn't one of them."

"I wouldn't worry. He talks about you all the time."

"He does?"

"Yeah. It's extremely annoying, actually."

"What does he say?"

"'You ever notice how Jennifer bites her lip when she's reading something?' 'Jennifer's already perfected a vaccine for that new disease.' 'I'm gonna go save Jennifer a slice of cake.' The guy's pathetic."

The corners of Keller's lips ventured higher, and soon enough, she'd managed a full-on smile. It made Sheppard feel better to see it.

"He's crazy about you, Doc. McKay just needs a little… push sometimes."

"Trust me, I've been _shoving_ him."

Sheppard grinned.

"I don't doubt that," he said, "but sometimes it takes a little longer than we'd like."

Keller watched McKay's face twitch. It reminded her of the way her dog's used to when he was caught in a sour dream. Her heart sank a little bit as she thought about McKay's cynical imagination and what it could conjure.

"He doesn't think he's good enough for me."

"Well, if the shoe fits…"

The doctor's glare startled him.

"Kidding. Just… kidding." He scratched the back of his head uncomfortably, fumbling for a redeeming remark. "Listen, Rodney's got a yin and yang thing going on with arrogance and doubt. With women, he's a little more yang than yin. He'll come around."

Keller nodded, but she didn't look comforted. In fact, her expression was glum.

"That's assuming he wakes up at all."

"_Of course_ he'll wake up," Sheppard insisted. "You said it yourself, there's no reason he shouldn't. His heart's beating, those wavy brain lines are… well, I don't know what those mean, but he looks like a million bucks."

The doctor exhaled an amused breath, and for the second time, her companion drew from her a modest smile. Sheppard, like McKay, was better at this kind of thing than he thought he was.

He offered her a lopsided grin, then took a step back.

"I have to go meet with Colonel Caldwell about the next supply run, but Teyla should be by in just a little bit." He turned to leave when Keller nodded, but stopped and turned back a moment. "I'll be back a little later too. But if you need something, just get me on the radio."

"Thank you, Colonel."

Sheppard rolled his eyes.

"I go and give you all that comforting personal advice and you still call me 'Colonel?'"

"Sorry. Force of habit," she replied with chagrin, letting his name sit on her tongue a moment. "Thank you, John."

He nodded again, and then he was off.

Left alone once more with her hapless suitor, Keller returned to watching him, displeased to see that his frown had deepened. She wished she could take whatever was in his brain and bear it in her own.

"Just wake up," she whispered. "Go on and just wake up."

* * *

An officer had offered to drive him home, but he hadn't known where home _was._ They'd had to find Keller's driver's license to get the address.

Upon his return to her house, which was so empty and unfamiliar that it nearly broke him, he placed a call to the SGC and informed General Landry of the incident. Landry had promised to pass the information along to Atlantis through the Midway gate.

And so, for now, there wasn't anything left to do. He didn't have any friends on Earth, and he didn't know any of Keller's. The police had taken his statement and would ask nothing more of him. There just wasn't anything to _do_.

His brain was rattling in his skull again, just like it had on that Jumper, and he smacked his forehead a few times in frustration. It all hurt. It just hurt.

When he couldn't take it anymore, he walked into her bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet, looking for anything she might have that could dull this great ache in his head. He knocked over a bottle here or there as he searched.

Why hadn't he just gone into the bank for her? He'd consciously thought to, then decided to stay in the car. Why was he here, in _her _home, rifling through _her_ things, and she in the grasp of oblivion?

Her medicines and band-aids and such were being toppled over and scattered, dropping down into the sink.

McKay's eyes blurred, wet. Things kept falling.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **Salutations. I apologize that it's taken me so long to update this story. My leisure time has been short of late, and the time I did have went into Your Yesterdays Ain't Nothin', but I'm happy to finally bring you a new installment of this story. Many thanks for the kind words you all have offered to this point. I appreciate you taking the time to read and review, and I hope you'll do so again for this chapter.

I've tried to capture the reality of the dream world a little bit, how things are disconnected and without proper segues, and how they don't always make sense. I hope I succeeded.

Thanks. Hope you like this update.

* * *

Here he was in a strange place with no one to back him up.

That wasn't so unusual, he supposed. It had happened to him before. Usually it was an alien planet, though, some land where few had tread. This place was a nexus for tragic things, and he was but one of several hundred to inhale the putrid scent of formaldehyde and shake the heavy man's hand.

He disinterestedly answered a long stream of questions, having to be coaxed out of his thoughts every now and again by the polite, but eerie director. It was a difficult thing to decide for a dead person the circumstances of their rest. He didn't think he had the right, but having received the news that her father had died that same day – a disturbing coincidence if ever there was one – he didn't have much of a choice, unless he wanted to turn things over to the Air Force, which seemed to him a detestable option.

Still, it felt wrong. Or if not wrong, like it wasn't happening at all.

"Mr. McKay?"

He looked up.

"Would you like the service to be open-casket?"

McKay dipped his head, looking down at his shirt. He noticed it wasn't buttoned right. He'd skipped one in the middle.

It looked so pitiful, he thought. It was just another thing he couldn't do.

* * *

He sat there in her kitchen, thinking how strange it was that there wasn't a stove. Did she not cook here? He knew it wasn't her preference, but she'd made reference in passing to making pasta with her mother as a child. Even if she didn't, it was strange for any kitchen not to have a stove.

There were other things that struck him funny too. Nothing in her refrigerator tasted like anything, as if his tongue had been stripped of its primary sense. And he thought it was peculiar that the house was so cold and damp.

When he heard a knock on the door, he could barely force himself out of his chair.

He ambled to the foyer in a daze, careful to put one foot in front of the other. His arm felt heavy when he reached out to open the door, thinking he might hug or deck whoever was on the other side.

As he opened the door and looked into the diffident eyes of Sheppard, he wasn't sure which inclination had won.

The soldier seemed to sense that struggle, but he hadn't words to offer to his bereaved friend. He started back at him, like he was waiting, or maybe just hoping, for McKay to speak. The scientist obliged him.

"Hi," he mumbled hoarsely.

Sheppard looked so sad or sorry or maybe just nervous that McKay could hardly stand to meet his eyes. He was sick of people coming and pitying him when things went wrong, and he was sick of the platitudes his friend surely had at the ready.

"Hey," Sheppard said softly, grinding his foot into the welcome mat.

There wasn't much to say after that. So McKay just let him in.

* * *

He couldn't help thinking that all of her friends looked familiar. It was the kind of feeling where you were pretty sure you'd seen them on the street or in a restaurant or passed them in a hallway somewhere, sometime. He wondered about that.

It was probably disrespectful, or at least an extreme breach of etiquette, that he wasn't paying attention to what anyone was saying. The preacher had droned on for a while about the undiscovered country, and then Carter had proceeded for some unknown span to pretend she knew the first thing about who Jennifer was.

He should have spoken himself. Everyone expected it of him. In fact, Teyla had seemed a little disgusted when he refused. That wasn't like her, was it? Or maybe she didn't know him as well as he thought she did.

Everyone sought him out after the service, one by one, sharing their condolences in the form of worthless hackney and awkward pats and squeezes on and of his arm. He could barely even feel their hands, like they were only half-there and he not there at all.

The rain began to pour, and everyone scrambled for their cars. He just stood there, though, looking at the carved-out earth where she'd be laying for a long, long time.

The wind began to cut underneath the rain, so that it pelted his face. It wasn't so bad, though. It was _something_, at a moment when there was nothing.

"Come on, Rodney," a ragged voice called out behind him.

McKay didn't move, just kept staring at that hollowed, hallowed ground.

When he felt a hand on his arm trying to turn him, he didn't resist, but he didn't go easily either. And he craned his neck for as long as he could to look back at the grave, as Sheppard calmly pulled him away.

* * *

He could hear things sometimes, voices, dropping out of the sky or rising like the devil through the steam in the street. Sometimes he didn't recognize them, and he'd write it off as passersby. Other times, though, they sounded familiar. Brutally familiar.

The worst was when he was at home, all alone in the quiet of night. He couldn't explain it away then, save for a self-diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome or the gradual onset of psychosis, both of which seemed frighteningly plausible to him.

He was slated to return to Atlantis next week, but he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that he wasn't fit to do so. If he was overwhelmed by his grief when all alone without a single responsibility, how did he expect to go back to a place saturated with bittersweet memories?

A soft whine from the next room took him out of his thoughts. He got up to go to the kitchen to rustle up some cat food.

It was so strange, he thought. His cat never made a sound, and certainly not out of hunger. But she'd whined and whined since he got back on Monday. What a curious thing.

* * *

"McKay, what are you talking about?"

"Never mind. I shouldn't have said anything."

"Well, you already did, so you might as well explain it to me."

The scientist looked away, rubbing his palms together in his lap.

"It's… probably nothing. Just my mind playing tricks. Just one of those things. But…"

"But what?"

"I – " He swallowed tentatively. "Sometimes I can hear people's voices."

Sheppard frowned.

"Voices? What do you mean?"

McKay closed his eyes, suddenly feeling as though he were standing at the precipice of a psychotic break. To hear the voices had been one thing, but to utter the fact to another somehow solidified the occurrence; he couldn't take it back now.

"I just… hear people talking sometimes. When there's nobody there."

Sheppard forced a neutral expression.

"In your head?"

"I guess."

"What do they say?"

"I can't really make it out, usually. It's just whispers."

"Whose voices? Is it your voice?"

McKay felt inexplicably irritated at the question.

"No, it's not _my_ voice!" he snapped. "You think we'd be having this conversation if I was just talking to myself?"

Sheppard looked down, careful to hide his eyes.

"I don't know, Rodney."

McKay sighed.

"You think I'm crazy now."

"I didn't say that," Sheppard replied emphatically. "Look, it's just… you've been through something pretty horrible. It makes sense if you – if you're not quite together."

"Not quite together? Like what, 'The Three Faces of Eve?' I'm not losing my faculties!"

"Calm down, okay? I'm _not_ saying your crazy, but it's not exactly normal to hear voices either, Rodney. I'm just trying to figure out what you're telling me."

McKay looked at the trash can a few feet away from the bench, then at the children playing catch thirty feet away, and then finally at the dull blue sky, empty but for the sun, which was for reasons he couldn't explain easy to keep his eyes on. It should have been blindingly bright. Why wasn't it?

"Rodney, I think maybe you should go see someone."

The scientist shook his head distractedly, staring with disturbed focus into the center of Earth's star.

"No," he said. "I don't need to see anyone."

"Look, just make this easy for both of us, all right?"

McKay finally looked back at him, his eyes full of confusion. Sheppard's were harder now, less sympathetic than before.

"If I have to make it an order, I will."

"An order?"

"I won't have anyone on Atlantis who isn't mentally fit," the soldier said coldly. "If you refuse to be evaluated, I'll take that as evidence that you're not."

McKay turned away, watching as one of the children slipped and fell on the sidewalk, landing in a heap on his face. He could hear the young boy begin to cry after that, as his friend knelt down beside him. There was no blood, though. Shouldn't he have been bleeding?

The scientist looked back on his friend with vacant eyes.

"I'll see you around, John."

* * *

Keller smiled as Teyla watched the monitor with joy in her eyes. It was one of the most rewarding parts of practicing medicine – witnessing the mirth which mothers bore life within them. There was something so wonderful about the idea that someone as wrought with stress and strife as Teyla could be so enthusiastic about the thought of creating human life and bringing it into this dangerous galaxy.

"There are no complications then?" the Athosian asked. "He is healthy?"

Keller nodded.

"He's doing great. Everything looks perfect."

"That is a relief," Teyla replied, her voice strained at the edges.

"You thought there was a problem?"

"No, I had no cause for alarm. I simply… worry."

Keller smiled reassuringly.

"That's not unexpected. It's part of being a mother. You're in for a lot more of it too."

Teyla returned her smile, tilting her head inquisitively as she was prone to do. There was a certain wistfulness in the doctor's voice that intrigued her.

"If I did not know better, I would think you were jealous of the predicament."

Keller ducked her head in embarrassment, a faint blush reddening her cheeks. She didn't particularly want to make her maternal clock the business of anyone else, especially someone she worked with, but she also knew that Teyla didn't mean any harm by it. This was the kind of thing women talked about anyway, wasn't it? She'd never had enough friends to have a frame of reference.

"_Jealous_ may be a bit strong."

"What word would you substitute then?" Teyla asked innocently, some humble mischief in her eyes.

Keller smiled in spite of herself.

"Well, I – everyone – I wouldn't _mind_ it one day. We all have to do our part for the species."

"Not for yourself?"

The doctor searched with reckless abandon for a retort that couldn't be found. She wondered if this was how McKay felt when he made an accidental innuendo. Her small smile unwavering, she finally relented.

"Some day," she said. "Eventually."

This time, it was Teyla who mustered an encouraging expression.

"When that time comes, I have confidence that you will perform admirably."

"We'll see about that," Keller muttered dismissively. "And anyway, that's a long way off. You, on the other hand, are less than two weeks from your due date."

"So soon? I seem unable to gauge time of late."

Keller took hold of her hand, helping her up from the examination table.

"That's what I'm here for," she replied kindly. "You just worry about taking care of yourself. You're doing great so far. It won't be much longer now."

Teyla nodded, smiling serenely, but though the doctor took that as a gesture of goodbye, the pregnant woman didn't move toward the door, walking instead toward the other end of the infirmary.

Keller trailed after her lazily, watching the Athosian's every beleaguered step with fascination. Her awkward waltz was kind of beautiful in its own way.

Teyla stopped, as she predicted she would, at the end of McKay's bed. Keller slowly came up beside her, following her gaze until her eyes fell upon the restless face of the unconscious scientist.

"It is still strange to see Dr. McKay so unanimated."

"I know what you mean," Keller replied, smiling at some memory that belonged exclusively to her.

"Is there nothing to indicate a change in his condition?"

"I wish I could tell you there was. I sit here trying to think of a way to put a positive spin on any of these readings, but nothing's changed."

"Are you no longer optimistic?"

Keller shook her head quickly.

"No, no. I don't mean it like that. I still see no reason why he won't come out of this. His brain function is extremely high. It's just…" She sighed. "There should've been some sign by now. It's been six days."

Teyla laid her hand on the doctor's shoulder.

"I am sure the matter will resolve itself. Dr. McKay has a tendency to cause great concern where none is needed."

There was truth in those words. Perhaps, in time, this would be nothing more than another bad memory left in the unvisited past. But maybe not. Maybe the awful universe would finally have its way.

"I'm sure," Keller parroted emptily.

Teyla's heart fell at the disbelieving tone, but she let it be, excusing herself a moment later after a long yawn reminded her of the nap that was an hour overdue.

With the Athosian gone, Keller found herself alone again, save for a nurse doing an inventory check in the supply closet in the next room. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or saddened. It was comforting to hear another human voice, especially one so given to kindness at Teyla's, but it was also becoming increasingly difficult to shield from her words the moroseness that she was beginning to feel inside of her.

Picking up a stack of unfinished charts from a nearby table, Keller settled as was routine into a chair beside the bed.

She'd only seen to three or four of the clipboarded reports when her open prayer to God and man and all their intermediaries was finally, at last, answered.

McKay groaned.

Keller jumped in her seat, deaf to the clatter of the charts as she fumbled them out of her lap and onto the floor. Her eyes, full so suddenly of an idiot's hope, shot up to look at the supine scientist, whose head was moving back and forth across the pillow now in a way she'd not before seen.

"Rodney?"

The timidity in her voice was probably pathetic, but it couldn't be helped.

Gripping the hand available to her with both her own, she pulled her chair forward and leaned toward him imploringly.

"Rodney?"

And then it happened.

His eyes opened a fraction. If you weren't looking closely, it would have been hard to see, but Keller caught the slightest of glimpses at the warm optics she'd come to so revere, and the sight was something of a genuine revelation, a spiritual event that probably should have shamed her. McKay was miles from deific, but in that particular moment, his action seemed divine.

"Rodney?" she whispered again, smiling coaxingly as his head rolled toward her.

For an instant – just one, and it was infuriatingly short – he looked right at her from beneath his heavy lids. There wasn't any reaction to speak of on his part. Not recognition or relief or anything else. He saw her, though. He surely saw her.

And then those eyes drifted shut once more.

* * *

McKay was ripped out of sleep like skin off a slaughtered beast's bones, and he took a desperate gulp of air as he shot up from the lumpy mattress, looking with wild, affrighted, bewildered eyes at the darkness surrounding him. Where was he? What happened?

That voice. He'd heard it, could still hear it. And he'd seen her too. She'd been there, flesh and blood and alive before him. Jennifer.

His heart pounded in his chest like it planned to bust through. Where was he?

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could begin to make things out. His dresser. His closet. An end table. His room. This was his room. His home. He'd been sleeping. He'd been dreaming.

But he'd _seen_ her. _Heard_ her. Dreams weren't so authentic as to engender such certainties.

The scientist shuddered, his hands shaking as if hypothermic, and in a terrible moment of epic clarity, he suddenly realized that he was truly, unequivocally, mad.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Salutations. Thanks to everyone who has continued to follow and leave feedback on this story. I'll address one review here specifically, just because it wasn't a signed review and I wanted to be able to get back to melanieb, since she took the time to leave me feedback on something that was vexing her:

You'll find that if you look up "optic," its first definition is: "the eye" or "an eye," and while "optic_s_" can refer to the branch of physics studying light and vision, "optics" is also accepted in the realm of literary scholars as the plural of "optic" (which, again, literally means "the eye" or "an eye"), making my use of it as a synonym for "eye_s_" fairly pedestrian. And anyway, I'd hate to keep typing the word "eyes" 500 times per story. :)

So! Pushing forward here, I hope you all will find this a satisfying conclusion to the one thread that has dominated the last few chapters. I again tried to write it in such a way that it's mildly confusing and without proper segues, and I hope that proves effective once more.

Thanks for reading. I hope the chapter works; let me know what you think.

* * *

He wasn't mad. He just _wasn't_. There was no cause for him to believe that he'd lost hold of his mental faculties. None. No history of such illness in his family. No history of it in his _own_ life. The only negative notations in his psychiatric evaluations spoke to his inability to delegate tasks, his reluctance to and difficulty in working well others, and his borderline dangerous workaholic tendencies.

But then again, maybe he _was_ mad. There was no other explanation for the things he was experiencing. He was hearing voices, seeing his dead girlfriend, looking into the sun without repercussions, acting erratically, and having strange confrontations with Sheppard, who clearly believed he was losing his grip on sanity.

Could any person be actively cognizant that they were crazy, though? Wasn't the fact that he was even entertaining the notion evidence in itself that he was _not_?

Yes. That makes sense, he thought. Go with that. Go with it.

McKay paced across his hardwood floor, his arms and hands moving about with a mind of their own.

"Okay, okay…" he murmured to himself. "If I'm not crazy, then there's an explanation. A very reasonable, Occam's Razor sort of explanation. Why is this happening? What do all of these things have to do with each other?"

There was the sky, darker than he'd ever remembered it, even in the day. There was Teyla and there was Sheppard, more confrontational than he'd ever known them to be. There was Keller's kitchen, missing a stove. There was his tongue, stripped of its ability to taste. There was that boy, who took a fall worthy of blood, but spilled none. And the sun. That damned sun, which refused to blind him.

And the voices. That one voice in particular. The one whose absence had haunted him. Jennifer's. And he'd seen her too; he'd looked upon her face as if she weren't covered in so much earth. It wasn't a ghost and it wasn't a delusion. It was _her_.

McKay froze. His fidgeting hands stilled.

He'd felt a sharp pain in his stomach just then. It was the exact same hurt he'd felt on the Jumper that long month or so ago.

Nervously, not quite certain of his own intentions, he reached down and lifted up the bottom of his t-shirt, examining the flesh of his newly exposed stomach. But there wasn't anything there, except for the half-healed, half-red cut he'd suffered in the crash. There was no blood – the stitches were in fact long gone – and nothing to indicate a reason for his pain.

McKay let the fabric fall, his hands dropping down to his sides.

As he felt the sharp pain begin to fade, like it was an echo of something so lost to him, he realized with a sinking acceptance that there was only one way he could figure this out.

He'd have to go back to where it started.

* * *

Her friends had told him at the funeral that they'd be by to see to her house, but it was clear that they hadn't been. The grass was overgrown, the mailbox overstuffed, and the newspapers piled up.

McKay took all of the delivered items and carried them into the house with him, dropping them onto the linoleum with an unceremonious paper-on-paper thud that sounded a lot like the swashing of water.

He was about to step over them and continue into the foyer, but as he lifted his leg to do so, something caught his eye below and physically rocked him back, gave him pause as he staggered a single step.

"What the hell?" he whispered.

Crouching down on unsteady legs, the scientist grabbed hold of one of the newspapers, reading the headline: "Bush to meet with Palestinians and Israelis in Washington." Then he picked up a second one; the headline was identical. So he picked up a third and a fourth and fifth, but still the print remained the same, each and every date unchanged.

Did some lazy paperboy just drop his entire stack on one doorstep? It didn't make sense.

Pausing briefly to contemplate the possibility, he then began to sift through all the mail he'd brought in. But much to his astonishment and consternation, each and every envelope was blank. There were no inscriptions on the front – not Jennifer's address or a return address. And none of them had postage stamps. Not one.

He tore open one of the envelopes, pulling out a neatly folded piece of white paper. But when he unfurled it to read its contents, it was blank. There wasn't one single mark.

Quickly tossing it aside, he opened a second one. But it yielded him that same piece of empty white paper. He ripped open a third and a fourth, but nothing. Nothing.

McKay staggered to his feet, the room feeling in a moment as if it were either spinning or he was vertigo's victim, and it was all he could do to remain standing as he stretched his hand out in search of the near wall.

Everything felt out of control. Empty mail, the same newspapers. He fought back the urge to vomit, stumbling toward the staircase, taking hold of the railing to keep him upright as he began a harrowing climb, the purpose of which eluded his rational mind. His legs had chosen a destination of their own accord and he was powerless in opposition.

Each step felt like a summitless mountain, blending into the next with nary an interruption, and for him the undertaking was his life's most perilous act.

Empty mail. An unbright sun. Keller's friends. No stove. The boy didn't bleed. That sky was so black. Why did his cat whine? No, no, no, no. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't crazy.

When he finally reached the top of the stairs, he nearly collapsed, but with a will greater than he'd supposed he truly had, he remained upright, walking slowly down the hallway toward Keller's bedroom, using the wall to hold himself up. What was it he'd find? He didn't know.

The closer he got to the half-open door, the more he could feel that pain in his stomach coming back to him, its intensity increasing with each breath until it felt as though the wound were only now being inflicted.

One hand drifted down to his mid-section out of instinct, though there was nothing there but that soon-to-be scar, and he stumbled through the open door, finally falling to his knees.

What was it? What was here? His eyes darted around the room as any mad man's would, desperately searching for some validating clue. But though his hope remained that he was not lost already to some rotten psychosis, he had no reason to suppose otherwise just then. What was he looking for?

His eyes passed over her dresser and her closet and her bed and her night stand before finally settling on the wall on the far side of the room. It was where her photographs hanged.

He forced himself up to his knees with his hands braced against the floor, arms trembling as if the weight were too much for them to bear, and as the agony in his stomach seemed to spread through him like the cut spanned the entire front of his body, he forced his eyes up and tried through his blurred version to get a look at the pictures hanging beside the window.

And then it came to him. In a horrible, enlightened epiphany, everything crystallized in his tired mind. That picture – Keller and her father at the Grand Canyon. It wasn't real. None of this was real. The Grand Canyon. Canyons.

He was still on the planet.

And in the blink of his eyes, that quickest of human actions, he wasn't in her bedroom anymore. Everything around him had vanished, replaced by metal walls and a metal floor and the terrible sound of thunder. The ground was cool beneath him now, just as he remembered it.

McKay was in the Jumper. His tablet lay on the floor a few feet from him. With wonder and fear and a numbness he couldn't express, he looked around him, nearly choking on his own breath when he saw Keller strapped into her seat on the bench across from him, unmoving behind her restraints.

It took him seconds to find his voice, and when he finally did, it was quavering and hardly louder than a whisper.

"J – Jennifer?"

She was here. Right _here_. Right before his very eyes. He couldn't tell if she was breathing, though. It didn't look like her chest was rising or falling.

In an anguished panic, he scrambled toward her, feeling like he was moving through so much molasses to get there, and when he reached her, he had to use her legs to leverage himself up to an erect position on his knees.

"Jen?" he repeated again.

When he received no reply, he reached a shaking hand up to her neck, feeling for a pulse. But just like that night outside the bank, that horrid, imagined night, her heart didn't beat beneath his fingers. There was nothing. And it was only then that he noticed her skin was cold to his desperate touch.

"No… no…" he murmured in wretched misery. "Jennifer. Come on. Wake up, Jen…"

He took her face in his hands, stroking her cheekbones a moment before shaking her head the way a coach might an athlete's. But she didn't respond. And he knew she couldn't, but somehow he was angry with her. After all that he'd been through, she was still dead anyway. Gone. It ripped everything from his chest, entrails and all, and left his every inch and crevice empty.

Sliding down the side of her body, McKay collapsed pitifully onto his rear, burying his face in his hands.

"No," he whimpered softly. "No. No, no, no, no, no, no…"

"McKay, what are you doing?"

The scientist's eyes shot open and he pulled his hands away from his face, looking up into the confused optics of Sheppard.

Everything around him had vanished again, Keller nowhere to be found and the sterile Jumper replaced in full by an empty corridor in the SGC.

"What… what's…"

McKay shook his head, looking around with fresh confoundedness as he was transplanted into his third locale in the matter of a minute. What was going on? What was happening to him? Had he really lost it? Was this real, the others not? Was this Sheppard before him or some malicious sprite come to claim the scraps of his soul?

"Where am I?" the scientist demanded. "What do you want from me? _What_ do you _want_?!"

Sheppard recoiled, looking surprised or at least a good imitation of it, and he met McKay's eyes with what appeared to be concern.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "I was just coming to get you so we could leave. What's the matter?"

McKay's expression was hard and skeptical.

"Leave? For where? Where are you taking me? What do you want with me?"

Sheppard furrowed his brow, frowning deeply.

"You act like I'm kidnapping you," he said with some distaste. "We have a mission, Rodney. What the hell's going on with you? Why are you sitting on the floor?"

McKay looked away, overwhelmed by the accusation and by his own inability to answer for it. But that was the trick, wasn't it? To turn the tables against him, make him think it was _he_ who had something wrong with him. No, he'd not fall for this. This was all some clandestine scam. But _whose_?

He was probably strapped to some table in a lab somewhere. Michael's maybe, or the Genii's. They were manipulating him, conjuring delusions to test and to torture him.

Before he could properly wrap his mind around the notion, Sheppard was crouched down beside him, and a moment later, the soldier was pulling him up off of the floor.

Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, McKay told himself. He can't know that you know yet. Just be calm. Act natural. They have to think _you_ think it's real.

"I – I… was just feeling dizzy," the scientist muttered with difficulty. "Had to sit down. Sorry. I'm good. It's fine, really. Completely fine. Everything's fine."

Sheppard kept hold of his arm to steady him, looking over him with a scrutiny that chilled McKay to his bones. What was he looking for? Did he know? He knew. He already knew. I'm so bad at lying, McKay thought. He knows.

The soldier only smiled weakly.

"Let's take a walk down to the infirmary."

His heart leapt in his chest for a moment before he remembered this wasn't real, and even if it were, he wasn't on Atlantis. This was the SGC. Dr. Lam would be there, not Jennifer. Why would his captors choose the SGC?

"Um… yeah, yeah, sure," McKay agreed shakily. "Absolutely."

Sheppard nodded strangely, conveying his content with the scientist's acquiescence, but also his distrust of it. He seemed to accept the contrition for the moment, though, leading the scientist down the long corridor, his hand still grasping his arm.

The light from the ceiling seemed to McKay's eyes to undulate and pass through him, as if he himself were incorporeal, and the walls around him slanted toward him until he was worried that they would imminently crush him, but Sheppard seemed unfazed by it all. And before he knew it, though to him it felt as if mere seconds had passed, the soldier was turning into a doorway and guiding him into the infirmary.

The environment felt completely unfamiliar to him. He'd grown so accustomed to Atlantis' infirmary, with its open space and warm ambience, that this place was eerie and wrong and – with Sheppard's firm grip directing him where to go – it seemed to the unhinged scientist to be his own personal gallows.

He looked past the near exam table at the back of a woman's head and lab coat. It wasn't Dr. Lam, though; her hair was different. It almost looked like…

Janet Frasier turned around to face him, smiling tightly.

McKay gasped, stumbling back a step, though Sheppard didn't let go of his arm.

"What?" he whispered. "You're dead. You died."

Frasier frowned, though it looked entirely disingenuous. She took a step in his general direction, looking to Sheppard as if for clarification.

"He's not feeling like himself, Doc," Sheppard said. "You should probably look him over."

McKay shook his head fervently, trying in vain to pull away from his friend's grasp. He felt so weak, like a child might be potent enough to rule over him just then. What was his way out of this? What was there for him to do?

Frasier walked toward them, resembling to the scientist an executioner, and somehow he knew that if she were to lay a hand on him, this thing – this puzzle, this game – would all be over.

In a surprisingly swift motion, too quick for Sheppard to stymie, McKay elbowed him in the face, and while he was reeling, ripped the soldier's sidearm from its holster and took several steps back, gripping the gun with both hands and aiming it at the doctor.

"Stop!" he shouted manically. "Stop. Stop. Stop."

Sheppard brought a hand up to rub his tender cheekbone.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing, Rodney?"

The gun shook in McKay's hands, pointing alternately at each of them, as his eyes darted back and forth between them in a crazed panic. You've got them, he thought. You've got them. They can't touch you. You've got them.

"Just stay back!"

Frasier held up her hands, palms open, in a gesture of surrender. Her voice was maddeningly calm.

"Take it easy, Dr. McKay. Let's just slow down here. We can figure this out."

"Shut up!" the scientist shouted, his voice cracking. "Would you just shut up?"

He took one hand off the gun, scrubbing his face roughly before returning it to the weapon.

"I have had a _very long_ week, okay? You have no idea. _No_ idea! Now I don't know what kind of hall of mirrors you've got me running through, but this little fantasy – it ends right here, all right? This is it. I am _done_ with this game!"

Sheppard edged toward him, but sighed and paused when McKay turned the gun on him.

"Listen, Rodney," he offered softly, "Obviously something's the matter, and I would love nothing better than to help you get through it, but I can't do that as long as you're holding a gun on me. Just let us help you, all right? We can figure this out."

He took another tentative step, but the scientist's shout stopped him again.

"Don't! Stop! I swear to God, I will shoot you."

Sheppard, like Frasier moments earlier, held up his hands to placate him. His eyes looked convincingly sympathetic.

"And what if you're wrong, Rodney? What if this is real, and you're just sick?" he asked softly, soothingly. "Are you really just going to shoot me?"

McKay's trembling intensified, his grip on the gun white-knuckled, and as much as he wanted to pour his torment into a single squeeze of the trigger, he knew the man was right. What if this was real? What if he was truly lost to the chasms of psychosis? Could he live with killing Sheppard?

But it wasn't real. It just _wasn't_.

The scientist's eyes hardened as he looked upon his closest friend. He slowly shook his head, his lip just barely quivering.

"No, I'm not," he said, slowly turning the gun until it was pressed against his own temple. "But I won't spend one more second inside this rat maze."

It was a dreadful, echoing crackle.

* * *

His body arched off of the bed in the same instant as his eyes opened, and he sucked in a greedy, ragged breath as if he were emerging from some ocean's depths.

There were people around him, lights above him burning down, sheets covering him, the smell of antiseptics in the air, the faint sound of voices somewhere across the room, a pain in his stomach and in his head that seemed wonderfully and horribly familiar, and then the people around him were speaking, to him – or at least at him – but it was hard to hear the words.

As he thrashed about without design, he could feel someone's hands upon him – small, gentle, but insistent hands – and he could make out through his squinted eyes a face he'd thought was lost to him. As he focused on it through the blinding light that bathed it from above, he thought maybe he was dead and this was something of a reward.

But then there was another face too, one just as familiar and almost as welcome, and he could feel a man's hand touch his shoulder now.

The lips on both faces were moving, but he wasn't certain what they were saying. He needed to focus. Focus, he thought.

"McKay. It's all right, buddy. Calm down. It's okay."

It was only then that he realized he was still jerking about like a fish flopping in the sand, and he sought with partial futility to still himself. The man's hand remained firm against his shoulder, and both of the woman's hands were still upon him as well, one lightly grasping his wrist, the other pushing back his hair.

"Rodney, can you hear me?" she asked quietly, or maybe it just sounded quiet to his adapting ears. "It's all right. You're okay. Can you say something?"

McKay's movements stilled over a span of time he couldn't estimate, until finally – at long last – he lay back against the pillow, nearly spent already.

He could see Keller alternately looking between him and the monitors he was hooked up to. Was she really standing there? She was breathing and moving and talking, without a mark on her, except that small, detestable scratch that had dared to mar her face.

She was alive, and so, so, so full of vigor before his eyes. Just like in his dreams. But was that all that this was? Had he climbed out of the hole or fallen into it?

"Jen," he murmured weakly, turning his head in her direction.

She looked down on him, smiling as brightly as he'd ever seen her, grasping his hand tightly as her eyes welled up just enough to notice.

"Hey," she whispered sweetly.

But McKay didn't smile back. He looked up at her with sullen, beaten, tormented eyes that implored her to give him the thing he needed.

"Real?" he mumbled.

She didn't quite hear him the first time, so she leaned down until her face was right next to his, turning her ear toward his lips.

"You real?" he soughed faintly.

Keller wasn't sure what precipitated the question or what its proper context was, but it was clear from the desperate, defenseless expression on his face that he needed a clear and satisfactory answer.

"Yes," she assured him quietly, her hand gliding over his forehead. "Very, very, very real."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Hello! Sorry this took so long, but here it is: the final chapter. I decided that I didn't want to directly tie up each and every loose thread, but I think this is a satisfying conclusion. I hope you agree.

Thanks to everyone who has followed this story and courteously taken the time to offer feedback. Your encouragement was much appreciated. Let me know how you think the end turned out here. Enjoy!

* * *

He was in and out of sleep the next day or so, and each time he woke, he seemed paranoid and afraid. On one occasion, he was all alone when he came out of sleep, and in his fear and fervor he tried to climb out of bed, tangling himself in the wires like a dolphin in uncut soda plastic. He was shivering and scarcely lucid when the on-call nurse came upon him, and after that, Keller and Sheppard made sure there was someone sitting beside him at every hour of the day.

The scientist wouldn't talk much, even in those rare moments when he wasn't drowsy. It was clear to them all that something was amiss, but most of his friends couldn't figure what it was. Carter thought it might be the trauma of their ordeal. Sheppard knew better than that, though. McKay had been through much worse before.

Keller was the only one who seemed to have a handle on the matter. But she kept it to herself. It wasn't her place to disseminate the information if it was true, and the last thing her insecure astrophysicist needed was amateur psychoanalysis from left, right, and center. She'd deal with this on her own.

Forty-eight hours after he came out of it, he woke up and stayed awake the entire day. He wasn't disoriented anymore, or paranoid, but there was a tangible melancholy and discomfort that gripped his tense features. Maybe part of him still didn't believe he was truly out of it, or perhaps the ghosts of the place he'd been were organizing a haunting. In either case, he was frustratingly and uncharacteristically mute.

Sheppard made a run at him in the afternoon when the infirmary was empty, save for a single nurse doing some clerical work.

"So, are we going to talk about whatever's bothering you, or is this silent thing your new social policy?"

McKay didn't seem to have heard at first, but after a moment he finally looked up, narrowing his eyes as if in concentration.

"What?" he asked.

"I said, are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

The scientist thought for a time, and he seemed to be taking it seriously, which in itself surprised his friend. This might have been the most serious he'd ever seen McKay when lives weren't in peril.

"It's nothing," McKay said eventually, his lips looking a little pale as the annoyed words trickled through them. "I'm just tired, and my head hurts. Am I allowed to be tired? Is that okay with you?"

Sheppard blinked languidly at him, but his face betrayed the sympathy he felt. He crossed his right leg over his other knee, leaning back in his chair.

"If this is about Cardinal…"

"Don't. Don't even start."

"It wasn't your fault, Rodney. You had no way of knowing the Wraith would come to Pagoa, and if you don't see that, then you're an idiot."

McKay scowled, but he didn't have the gumption to look at the soldier as he did it.

"I don't want to talk about this."

"Too bad."

"Let me be a little clearer: I'm not _going_ to talk about this, and if you persist in trying to coerce me to, I'll ask the nurse that you not be allowed to see me."

The venom and harshness of the words blew Sheppard back. That wasn't the response he'd anticipated. He'd fully expected to win the battle of wills, like he usually did in these matters. The McKay who'd just spoken those words – cold and disinterested and nearly malicious – was almost alien to him.

"Fine," the Colonel said quietly. "We'll just sit here then."

* * *

She really shouldn't have laughed. There was nothing funny about it. It was just that she kind of admired his ability to dismiss someone and the frankness with which he did it. Or maybe she was just so delirious with affection or patience or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that she'd have found murder or theft endearing. It didn't really matter, she supposed.

Sheppard's frustration had been evident to her. He wasn't used to being "handled" – his word – by McKay so easily. She'd assured him after the debriefing that she would look in on the scientist. It was the first time McKay had been left by himself in the infirmary since he'd come out of his haze, and she had to admit that the notion unnerved her.

It seemed almost disrespectful or belittling, this idea that he needed to be monitored like he was a child or a loon, but she couldn't help it. He'd been distant and quiet and broody. Retreating from the world he'd only just returned to.

When she arrived in the infirmary, she smiled politely at one of the nurses and crossed to the other side as quickly as was dignified, pulling back the curtain around McKay's bed.

Her heart palpitated when she saw a tangle of sheets covering an empty mattress.

Oh no.

"Mira!" she shouted, turning back and shuffling toward the kind-eyed young nurse whose name she uttered. "Where is Dr. McKay?"

The nurse frowned deeply, her fright and surprise and filling the lines around her mouth.

"I – I don't know," she stammered. "He was right there. I only left for a minute. I was redoing inventory. Dr. Rogers said there was a discrepancy."

"You didn't notice our only patient disconnect all of his leads, stand up, and walk out?" Keller snapped.

Mira looked suitably embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. I thought he was asleep. I just – why would he leave anyway? I don't understand."

Keller shook her head, either in annoyance or reply, but she didn't offer an utterance to the nurse, instead turning away from her and heading toward the door as she tapped her earpiece.

"Colonel Sheppard, come in."

"This is Sheppard," a smooth voice replied. "Something wrong?"

"It's Rodney. He's gone."

"Gone? What do you mean, _gone_?"

"Gone. Got up. Left. He's not in the infirmary."

"I told you we should've had somebody sitting there."

"Can you please be 'right' later? Maybe after we've _found_ him?" she asked curtly.

"All right, all right. Don't worry. How much trouble could he get into? Don't panic, Doc."

Keller sighed, and that was enough of a reply for Sheppard, who continued, "I'll check his quarters, and I'll send Ronon down to the mess hall. Maybe he was just hungry. You go and check his lab, or… wherever else it is he goes."

The doctor hurried down the corridor, her footsteps clapping thunder.

* * *

He leaned forward against the balcony railing, looking out over the calm ocean. Most of the time it seemed full of life. Whales and fish and others thrashed about, displacing water in places, and on occasion storms would conjure back-breaking waves that admittedly scared the shit out of him. It was preferable to this, though, this dark, tranquil night that made the ocean look as black and empty as the sky up above.

He'd lost track of the time when he heard the balcony door slide open. He didn't have to look to know it was her. Sheppard had gotten the message earlier, and there was only one other person who would waste their time on him.

When she quietly walked up beside him, his body nearly broke in two at his conflicting desires. He really wished she'd touch him, and he really prayed she wouldn't.

"Hey," she said softly, trying not to look at him.

His throat felt dry.

"Hi."

She glanced at his arm, seeing a small red blotch where he'd torn out his IV. It was such a small thing, but it bothered her. Not as a doctor, because she knew how insignificant an injury it was. It bothered her as something else.

"You all right?"

He nodded distantly, but sincerely, and she thought maybe it was an answer to a different question.

"You can't just go running off like that. You scared me."

McKay stiffened, and for a moment she was terrified she'd said the wrong thing. He stroked his thumb along the metal railing, his hand shaking a bit.

"Yeah, I – I didn't – I – I'm sorry," he fumbled. "I just…"

"Hey, it's okay," she assured him, smiling mildly. "I'm not upset."

"You should be."

"Why's that?"

"Because…"

"Because it's your fault they died?" she asked with stunning forthrightness.

McKay took a gulp of air, reacting physically to her direct rejoinder. He wasn't expecting her to say that, and he'd not gone to the trouble of preparing a response. His hand shook a bit more noticeably and he closed his fingers around the railing to try to hide it.

"That's a silly thing for you to think," Keller said, her voice so warm and gentle and more than he deserved. "Everything that happened is because you wanted to help people. And so did I."

He shook his head in frustration.

"I know what you're doing. Stop."

"What am I doing?"

"You're trying to make it so it's both of our fault or neither. But that's not true. All you did was do your job and help the sick. I'm the one who let a pair of defective Jumpers into the ship rotation. No cloaks, no shields. You had nothing to do with that."

"Donovan and Cardinal both approved the mission. So did Carter. Everyone understood what the risk was. You act like you killed everyone single-handedly."

"Maybe I did!" McKay snapped. "I – I could have worked harder to fix them. I could've… if I'd just…"

Keller shook her head gently, pulling his forearm into her delicate grasp.

"Killing yourself isn't the same thing as bringing them back."

McKay lowered his head, hiding something damp and pathetic.

"I wish I could do something else. But that's all I know how to."

"It doesn't have to be that way."

"It does. And that's why this won't work."

Keller's hand trailed up his arm until it lay on his cheek, and she could feel the shudder that ran through him, knew what it was she did to him. She forced his eyes down to hers.

"What are you so afraid of?"

He looked terrified to meet her gaze. Terrified and self-loathing.

"Radio Nowhere isn't just down on that planet," he whispered. "It's inside of other things too."

"Tell me."

He blinked back something detestable.

"I… I saw how it could end. I saw what I became. It was like emptiness on top of emptiness."

She lightly stroked his face.

"I'm right here," she said, "and I feel everything a person should."

"But…"

"It's not your fault that you aren't perfect."

"I can't…"

"I don't know what you saw, or how terrible it was, but I know I'm right here, right now. And I know that you're not what you think you are."

He tried to look away, but both her hands were on his face now, and he was helpless to move against them. He didn't have a choice but to keep looking into those sweet, clement eyes. She'd break him soon. Faster and softer than Kolya ever could.

"I'm no good, Jen. You better stop now."

"No."

"A person can't be happy with me. Trust me, it's true."

"I don't believe you."

Something dropped to his cheek against his will, and Keller erased it with her fingers. He looked so lost.

"I – you're not – you have to stop… or I won't."

Keller's lips turned up at the edges and her face drifted toward his, and once he saw that, he had no choice but to lower his head and catch her lips with his. It was a gentle, timid kiss, but somehow more rewarding than their first. Awful things were leaving through his pores in a holy exodus.

When they finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers, her hand grasping the back of his neck, holding him there.

McKay pressed his nose against hers, letting out a shaky breath.

"You already know, don't you?" he whispered.

_I was drivin' through the misty rain_

_searchin' for a mystery train_

_boppin' through the wild blue_

_tryin' to make a connection with you_

_This is Radio Nowhere_

_Is there anybody alive out there?_

_This is Radio Nowhere_

_Is there anybody alive out there?_

_I just wanna feel some rhythm_

_I just wanna feel some rhythm_

_I just wanna feel your rhythm_

_I just wanna feel your rhythm…_

She smiled. Then she took his free hand in her own, and pressed it over her heart. He closed his eyes and he saw blue, not black.

He saw blue and he was flying.

* * *

**FIN**


End file.
